All This Time
by PhoenixTearsCG
Summary: A SEQUAL TO LOVE IS PAIN: If you love something, set it free if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was. Richard Bach
1. Existing in Death

All This Time…

**By**: PhoenixCGandAC  
**Ship**: Hr/D  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Warnings**: None

**Summary**: A SEQUAL TO _LOVE IS PAIN:_ "If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was." (Richard Bach) After falling in love with Draco Malfoy, the most unlikely candidate she could have chosen, Hermione's life has taken a new course: as Harry Potters wife. Through the pages of this story will unfold the mysteries of love and all of its counterparts. Love is a complex thing and it is never simple, especially when formed between two people at opposite ends of the battlefield: people such as Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy. Can the love they had ever become something tangible? Can someone save Hermione's life after it was torn to pieces by Draco's death? Could anyone but Draco ever really do that? And above all else, what is the definition of death? And are you really dead, when your heart stops beating? 

_Read to find out…_

Recommended you read Love is Pain but not necessary.

_Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, the world they live in, or any of the characters in it. Ms. Joanne Rowling owns them all, so I say she should keep them. I'm just making up stories from her original plot and own nothing, not even the computer I'm typing this on, that's my mothers. Lol. Sad, yes, but true. Oh, and I should probably mention that I don't own the Princess Bride either, since I used lines from the movie and am thinking about using some of their plot ideas. And I use a line from Holes, too. I'm not the owner of any part of Holes, so we should clarify that now. The line says, "I feel so cold" and I stole that from the movie. _

**This piece of fanfiction was made as a sequal to the other fic I wrote, Love is Pain, as stated before. I was looking up Hr/D challenges on the internet and ran into this challenge on http/ **

**#5 Let this quote inspire a story:  
"If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was." (Richard Bach)**

**I happen to think that the entire story I'd already started here revolves around this famous quote and have now decided to enter this piece of fanfiction in this challenge. So read and enjoy… or don't. **

**Chapter 1:** Existing in Death 

A pair of pale eyelids holding prisoner stormy gray eyes fluttered open for the first time in what felt like years. The sun's rays blinded the man's pupils, causing him to shut his eyes again and let out a groan of protest. He suddenly became aware of a blinding pain shooting up from his left side and another one from his left foot. His head began pounding as consciousness slipped slowly back to him and he felt as though it had been filled with lead as he struggled to lift it from the earthy ground and into the cold air around him. His right arm could have been undergoing the utmost torture from the way it pained him to lift his hand to his eyes and shield their pupils from the sun. Trying his vision again, he opened his eyes and blinked.

He had been left alone, stranded, and deserted in an empty wasteland. The trees looked stripped of their bark and the grass pleaded to him for water. He had been left in a clearing to die with trees surrounding him from all sides, the nearest ones maybe twenty feet from his lax body. The taste of dust lingered alone on the tip of his tongue along with the faint taste of coppery blood caked to the corners of his lips and swirling around his tongue as the smell of dead plants ensnared his nostrils. The silence surrounding him caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. This couldn't be natural, this eerily non-existent noise.

He couldn't remember a thing. Breathing heavily, he relaxed into the ground and groaned. The pain in his side continued to become more apparent by the second, and he could feel shots of pain extending from it to his foot, as though a flaming rope had attached itself to his skin and branding a mark from one hot spot to another. He allowed his gaze to wander to his side to evaluate the damage and saw that a stream of blood had soaked through his clothing to create a blanket of blood around his side. His foot felt broken and his left leg looked like it, too, had blood extending from one wound to another.

Forcing his eyes to look away, he looked up at the canopy of trees instead, the shapes of the leaves swirling around him. He could feel his consciousness slipping away from him again, bit by bit, as the minutes wore on. It became apparent to him that he might have a concussion and he vaguely remembered reading about it being possibly fatal to fall asleep with a concussion.

_But what does it matter? _a voice seemed to say in his head. _You have nothing left to live for, and sleep would be so comforting right now._

Agreeing full heartedly with this decision, the man tried to ignore the pain enveloping his body and focused on allowing his body to fall asleep, when it hit him…

He did have something to live for. Her: the women who had changed his life. The women who had saved him from his father, the girl whom he had teased constantly as a child, the girl who hadn't cared and looked for the good in him anyway, the only women who had ever been able to steal his most valuable trait… his heart.

And it had all been because of Hermione Granger:

That damnable, Hermione, effing, Granger.

Thinking of her for the first time brought about a change so complete in Draco's demeanor, no one who knew him would ever believe it. He sat up, not caring that it seemed likely his head could fall off his shoulders from the pain, but simply knowing that he had to stay alive, for her if no one else.

And he did. He lifted his shoulders off the ground and screamed a loud roar of pain as the stitch in his side split open afresh from the sudden movement, but inside, he couldn't have cared less. He needed to get back to London. To find Hermione and show her the pain he had been forced to endure because of her, because she had let him go without her. For he felt sure, now, that it must have been she who had pushed him to go. For surely no sanctimonious person would ever deny his heart the indescribable feeling bestowed upon him when she permitted her presence to linger around him.

And the answer suddenly appeared, staring him right in the face; he needed to get home, and he needed to get home now.

Gasping again at the fresh shot of pain, he subconsciously placed his hand on his side to try to ease the bleeding. Concentrating as hard as he could, he placed his other hand on the ground and used it to push himself to his feet. It took him about two minutes to finally stand upright, but eventually, he managed it. Unfortunately, by the time he got to his feet, the weight he supplied to his broken foot overcame him and he immediately fell to the ground, crushing his kneecaps on his way down. Pain beyond anything he had felt earlier shot like an electric shock through his body in waves from the point his legs had hit; at his kneecaps.

Letting out another roar of pain, he lowered himself to the ground completely, his face pushing into the dirt and weeds below. His left hand stayed at his side, but he allowed his right to slowly wander to the pocket of his robes in search of his wand.

Of course, as he should have known, it was not there.

"Damn it," he swore under his breath. He groaned as realizations began to dawn on him; if he couldn't even stand up, he couldn't walk. And if he couldn't walk, then he couldn't reach a nearby city. And if he couldn't reach a nearby city, he couldn't find a way to present himself in a respectable way for Hermione and if he couldn't do any of that, then he would surely die, banishing all hope of ever seeing Hermione again from his mind.

A feeling began to stem in his heart: a feeling of despair. Considering what he had just been thinking about, this should not have been surprising. And yet, this feeling felt completely unrelated to his own feelings at the moment. The feeling, he somehow knew, did not belong to him, but to someone else. Someone else felt despair overtaking them along with a feeling of being alone, forgotten, and dead. Her heart cried out to him, bleeding, and dying from the inside out.

That someone was Hermione.

He knew it. It had to be. No one else on the face of this earth affected him nearly as much as she did. His parents? Hah! Don't make me laugh; they had betrayed him. The Dark Lord had wanted him to kill a very important person in his sixth year and he had failed to fulfill his task; someone else had instead of him. Everyone had been under an agreement to act as if Draco had performed it. They had made a pact not to tell the Dark Lord that it had indeed been Snape who fulfilled the perilous task, and not Draco. And the Dark Lord had found out because his mother and father had told on him. Under wand point, yes, but it was the principle of the matter. Draco hadn't spoken to either of his parents since that day; he could never trust them again.

A newfound energy coursed through his body as he came to the realization he had been trying to avoid: Hermione was dying. A pit of depression had overtaken her mind and he needed to save her. Breathing heavily, he flung his right arm away from his body, trying to find something, anything to help him. Moments after flailing about hopelessly, his hand found a button. A button sunk low in the weeds and dirt, but nevertheless, a button. Surprise and joy giving him a new hope, he touched it with his finger and all the sudden, everything changed.

Colors began to swirl in spirals from the point his hand had touched the ground. First red, then orange, then yellow, and so on through the rainbow, and then repeating itself. As the tight swirls of color reached two inches away from their axis, a blinding light shot from the middle of the pool of color and soaked the surrounding environment in it's rays. At that point, Draco realized that his situation had slowly evolved into something even worse then he had originally figured.

The trees fell away, the dirt and weeds replaced by cold, metal flooring, and the endless woods replaced by stonewalls. Chains gripped his arms as they extended from the floor and Draco could have sworn the temperatures dropped from the harsh environment alone.

A voice echoed around the room, soft, yet powerful. "I wondered when you'd wake up. I've been waiting for you."

Draco looked up. He could see the shadow of a person from the far corner of the room but a dark light surrounding him, blocked his face from view. "Who are you," Draco managed to gasp, his head spinning from the words and his breathing hitching in his throat.

"I?" The voice questioned, amusement etched in its very core. "I am the man who has made your life hell. Tell me, are you aware that this is the tenth time you have performed this very same task?"

"What?" Draco whispered, his voice hoarse from strain.

"You have woken up from this very same allusion-forest ten times now. It's the way it's been ever since I captured you. You wake up, you look around, grasping your bearings, you try to stand because there is still some hope within you which I have been unable to crush as of yet, you fall down, you end up touching the button and the environment all falls away. Then, we converse, well, actually, I do most of the talking, and then I torture you. And after that, I obliviate your memory and you fall asleep.

"What is it you still wish to fight for? Surely nothing in this world could have entered your meaningless life strongly enough to keep you alive for this long. So who is it? Who is she? I know there must be someone so there's no use denying it, boy."

"Who are you?" Draco asked again, his eyelids had begun to droop from fatigue and his body had subconsciously slumped over.

The man simply laughed. A cold, icy laugh which fit the room's environment perfectly. "Do you not know?" he asked. "After all these years, can you still not recognize me?"

Draco looked up at the man who stood so close, and yet so far away. He began to find himself lifting up, as though his soul watched his body from a distance. And then, a voice entered his mind. He had experienced this same feeling moments before, when he had felt Hermione's emotions.

"Who is she?" the man asked.

Words flooded Draco's mind as they flowed on a never-ending cycle through his clouded mind. He could feel the words reverberating off the bones in his body as they pounded through his very essence. _It's so hot, Draco, and yet I feel so cold. I'm dying without you here with me. Save me, Draco. Save me… Draco, Draco, Draco…_

"Hermione," he whispered to himself, and then his world went black.

Hermione's eyes opened slowly. Her soft bed seemed to caress her head as she lay there, awakening from her slumber in the early hours of the morning. She had been waking up in the wee hours of the morning ever since she had married the man who lay next to her. Her husband. The man, she… loved.

_Yes, _her brain argued, _I do love him._

_But in what way?_ her heart retorted. _You love him as a brother, yes, but what about a lover? Could this man ever truly replace Draco?_

A tear crept down her cheek as she recalled the vivid memories she had of that day. That day he had left her. The day she had died. She hadn't been the same person ever since that day. She had lost the brightness of her small and her consistent, obnoxious opinionated ways. She had been reformed and she blamed it entirely on Draco Malfoy for taking her soul with him to America: all because she had allowed herself to fall in love.

_I will never love again,_ she whispered in her mind. She had developed it as a sort of mantra. She had been repeating this to herself ever since she had found out Draco had died. When Harry had tried to take his place, Hermione remembered locking herself in a room with Ginny and sobbing, "I love Harry like a brother but I could never love him as I loved Draco." And Ginny had, somehow, understood. Hermione couldn't understand how, exactly, and yet Ginny seemed to acknowledge every word she had previously uttered. That may have been because it had been Ginny who had heard the first words Hermione said after Draco left her that dreadful day. "I will never love again."

She had said it with such a forceful and blank expression that Ginny had been heartbroken by it. She had placed a bet on Hermione, when her life had rested at Hogwarts with Harry and Ron, that it would be Hermione who married first and fell in love with the man of her dreams. Well, she most certainly had fallen in love with the man of her dreams, but at what price? It had all ended up so horribly that Ginny had been scared for Hermione's life. How could it all have gone so wrong?

Harry Potter rolled over in his sleep, muttering rubbish as he pulled the sheets off Hermione's lap. Another tear roamed down her cheek as she watched him sleep. He didn't deserve this, not after all he'd been through. And yet, he didn't seem to care. It almost seemed like, sometimes, he knew her heart belonged to another man, alive or dead, but he never mentioned anything. Not even when Hermione had refused to sleep with him on their wedding night. He had just accepted it without question. They slept in the same bed, but their nocturnal activities continued to rest with sleeping.

It had been almost two years since their marriage, and the same excuse Hermione had uttered that night couldn't be upheld for this long of a time, especially in a healthy marriage, so they had slept with one another, but Hermione never found joy in it. She didn't find joy in much of anything anymore. Her life seemed to be filled with gray, she had given up sifting through it to find some black and white… a little change of scenery. She didn't care. The only purpose left in her life fell to just living, and nothing more. Why should she go on in life when the only one worth living for had abandoned her… abandoned her for death.

The tears crumbling down Hermione's face, now, had trodden a steady path in their wake. Rolling onto her side, she closed her eyes and fell asleep. She had nothing left within her to whisper; _you'll wake up to a new and brighter tomorrow!_ Nor a voice that whispered, _You're life may appear glum now, but imagine the happy parts of life and look forward to when it will turn over a new leaf!_ For tomorrow, in Hermione's mind, would not be any better… nor would the day after, the day after, or the day after.

Her life had been reduced to one dimension. She existed each and every day. And you can't really call existing living.

**A/N: Hey everyone! Please don't kill me for the first chapter of the story… after all, it is just the first chapter! I always have a hard time writing them and then getting my audience to like them… the chapter, that is. So please don't give up on the story yet! I know most of you who read _Love is Pain_ would currently like to kill me for changing the end of the story, but I didn't. This has been my plan from the moment I wrote that story. Lol. So I know you all hate me for making it so cliché, but just go with me. I'll explain everything later on, but you'll probably hate me more after I do. Anyway, I love you all and hope you look out for the next chapter! Thanks for choosing to read this and I hope I can get the next chapter out soon!**

**throws cookies over shoulder as she runs away from pack of angry readers**

**PhoenixCGandAC, Caitlyn**


	2. Blinding and Binding

_Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, creatures, places… well, let's leave it at I don't own anything connected to Harry Potter. I'm just using Jo's characters and ideas to enhance my writing skills and am not trying to make a profit or anything off of them!_

**Chapter 2**: Blinding and Binding 

**A/N: Be warned, excessive A/N below! Read and enjoy!**

Draco woke up, his head pounding in his skull. He looked up into the trees above him, and frowned. He remembered those trees. He didn't know how, or when he'd seen them before, but he remembered them. Instinctively, he looked down at his aching limbs and noticed blood drying to his clothing, a wet sticky substance sticking to his flesh.

And suddenly, he remembered. Flashes of memory forced themselves through his mind. Flashes of a man, a man who had stood, laughing at him, in the shadows. He remembered the trees spinning around him. The blinding pain shooting through his body as he had fallen to the ground.

Blinding, blinding… where had he thought of that word before? He knew it had applied to something, he just couldn't think what.

The light, the button, the rainbow colors… the blinding light. The room had changed when he had pushed a button: a button hidden on the ground: a button, which had caused him blinding pain from its blinding light.

He looked to the right side of his body and cautiously sat up so that his back stood perpendicular to the ground. The pain in his side burned his flesh, but he ignored it. His right arm reached over and grazed the grass around him. His fingers walked along the ground, trying to find the button.

And he found it. The scenery changed much the same way it had before, and soon, he found himself sitting in a room with manacles chained to his arms. Instinctively, he looked into the far corner of the room and found, to no surprise, the shadow of a man standing there.

"You fell asleep, dear boy. You fell asleep before I was able to follow through with my procedure. I wasn't able to cause you the pain I have so generously supplied before. Nor was I able to obliviate your memory. Shame, shame… but oh well. These things must be done.

"Now, tell me what you remember. What is your most vivid memory at this point in time? And don't lie to me Draco, for I will know if you do," the voice whispered. Icicles seemed to lace the edges of his soft voice as they sent tremors through Draco's body.

That voice. Where had he heard that voice before? It sounded so familiar… and not just because he had heard it in his last encounter with this man in shadow. No, the way this man said his name reminded him quite a bit of another man. Another man, who happened to be his father.

"Hello Lucius," Draco growled. "Not exactly subtle, are you?"

"Well," his father responded, stepping into the dim light before him, "you were being agonizingly dim, so I thought I'd offer a bit of a hint. I'm glad it didn't take you even longer to recognize me. You had me worried as it was."

Draco laughed, somewhere between a sarcastic intake of breath and a scoff. "Actually, I'm a bit surprised I recognized the voice at all. It was only because you used my name that I was able to pinpoint who you were. No one says my name the way you do."

"I'm not sure whether I should take that as a compliment, or not. Either way, it won't fix your situation. You are going to pay for what you have done," Lucius whispered. He slipped his wand from the pocket of his robes and shoved it into Draco's pale neck.

"You're right, _dad_," Draco ground out sarcastically, putting particular emphasis on the word "dad". "I haven't been tortured nearly enough already. I don't recall what you've done to me in this chamber, but I do remember the pain and anxiety you forced me to endure before… back when I still followed orders from that pitiful excuse for life you can't even speak the name of."

"Forgive me, son, but I do believe you just sidestepped the use of his name as well," Lucius hissed, pushing his wand deeper into Draco's neck.

"What, Voldemort?" Draco asked through gritted teeth. Draco felt no fear as he looked and spoke to his father. He may put up a brave front, but Lucius' experiences had turned him into a coward. No fatal threat besought Draco's well being while under the torture ranks of Lucius Malfoy. He may suffer from this newfound pleasure his father had taken up, but just to see this look on his father's face while he interrogated him made it all worthwhile… or, lack-there-of as the case may be. Lucius' expression froze the very skin on Draco's face as he looked upon its rigid and forced nonexistence.

"You forget your place, Draco. You have no right to speak that name aloud. May his spirit haunt you even in death." Lucius spat on Draco's face, his cold breath freezing the liquid as it dripped down his features.

"Tell me, why are you still loyal to him after all he's put you through? After all he's been through. He's dead. Why can't you just accept that? Everyone else seems to have found their reality check. Where did yours disappear?" Draco asked sardonically.

"Using muggle terms now, are we?" Lucius mocked. "Mmm, I should have known. Taking up a muggle born for a mistress can do that to you."

Draco's heart froze. How dare he speak of Hermione that way? He had to fight to regain his composure and keep his façade as blank as possible. "She's not my mistress, she's my girlfriend. Hold your tongue when treading upon matters of which you have no knowledge."

"I, hold my tongue? Do not forget who is the elder here, Draco. I am your father, whether you like it or not, and you would do well to treat me with the proper respect.

"Now, I think we have conversed long enough. You have proven my hopes of new loyalty false. Until you submit to unwavering service to the Death Eaters, you will be tortured in this chamber, doomed for death. I will not kill you now, Draco. But by the time I am finished with you, you will wish for death to come just to take away your misery." Lucius stood erect, his body towering over Draco's crouched form. Wand raised aloft, he pointed its sharp point at the body in front of him and murmured, "_Crucio_" in crisp diction.

Pain unlike any he had felt since his last obliviation consumed Draco's body for but a split second, but that second felt like all the demons of hell had been released upon him; pinning him to the floor and stabbing him with their bloody pitchforks. But he felt no pain beyond that second. For Draco had been ready for this. He had been fully expecting his father to perform this Unforgivable curse on him, and he had readied a place of escape for his mind to wander. Hermione's face hovered before his and her body soon followed. He felt her warm hand grasp his as she pulled him along with her. A meadow surrounded them, with birds chirping in the distance and the tall grasses whispering to their legs as they leapt through the weeds. He heard her laugh as she twirled around, her skirt skating along after her. A huge smile accompanied his lips as he watched her, soaked to the brim with happiness.

And then, the illusion disappeared. His father had lifted the curse, and he lay, panting, on the cold floor.

For just a moment, he had known pure happiness. And that moment had given him strength to fight. His life would know happiness again and that happiness would be real. Not artificial daydreams used to maintain his sanity.

"How did that feel, son?" Lucius hissed. "How did it feel to have your own father puncturing your very core in such a manner?"

Draco groaned, a low, hearty moan. He knew that he needed to put up a front if he intended to figure out a way to survive and escape this place. If he pretended to be overcome with pain as he endured these curses, he may just have a chance. "You… filthy… son-of-a bitch," Draco gasped, trying to create as real of an illusion as possible.

"Mm," Lucius hummed, thinking as he looked down on Draco's body. "Perhaps… and perhaps you're lying to me. Perhaps you have felt no pain at all from my little show. Such answers remain to be seen."

"Oh yes," Draco panted. "I can't wait until our next little rendezvous. My life seems to be filled to the brim with choices, now, doesn't it?"

Lucius paused for a moment before answering. In the dim light, Draco could see him thinking, his forefinger pressed to his lips in thought. "You know, Draco, I don't think I will obliviate your memory this time. I want you to stay conscious as you become more and more aware of your pitiful state. I want you to go insane with the possibilities you have been denied. I want you to realize just how helpless you are and how little way of escape there truly is." Lucius smiled on the slight change of emotion playing across Draco's face. "Yes, my boy. There is a way out. It was inevitable when this building was built to fit the purpose it is being used for, that it had to have some way of getting out. So there is one way. But if you ever manage to escape, I will never grace you with my presence again."

"Is that a promise," Draco asked. "We'll make a deal. If I get out, you never interfere in my life again. In ANY way."

Lucius smiled at the offer. He was incapable of passing up a challenge. "How could I resist? We'll shake on it, shall we? That way it's firm… and legal."

"No," Draco corrected him. "We'll perform the Unbreakable Vow. That way it's not only legal, but permanent as well. It may come as a surprise to you, but I don't trust you Lucius."

Lucius stayed silent for a moment longer. He seemed to be thinking about this suggestion. Draco knew exactly which thoughts now plagued his mind. He could, on the one hand, make a snide remark, such as; _you have no room to bargain. Look at where you're standing!_ But then again, he could also perform said task, and give Draco hope. And hope, in the hands of prisoners, is very dangerous. If they have hope, they got it into their minds that they might survive. And if he proved, by leaving Draco to ponder ways of escape, that there _was_ no chance of survival, Draco would be in an even deeper rut for allowing himself to hope in the first place.

"Alright then, son. We'll perform the Unbreakable Vow. I'm afraid, though, that we don't have a third party to help us perform it."

"Oh, I'm sure you have guards hanging around here someplace. Even if they are just trying to figure out which direction is the floor and which the ceiling," Draco offered, smirking at his own brilliance.

Lucius glowered at him. "One moment, then; if you will. I dare say you have quite a few moments to spare these days, but no matter."

Draco's head was pounding. The Unbreakable vow was a very risky procedure to agree to. He had to make sure he said the words exactly as they should be said. If he left anything out, Lucius would have the upper hand and Draco could kill himself from his mistake. It was a risk, but the highest possible chance of survival so far.

The door opened, and in walked a burly man about six foot tall with a crew cut and quite a few pounds of excess fat juggling around his person. "Goyle, here, has agreed to perform the task for us, Draco. Now, I'm going to take the manacle off of your wrist and replace it around your forearm." He did so with the flick of his wand, and Draco suddenly felt the weight lift off of his wrist. It was free. He could move it again. Blood had dried to his skin at the places where the manacle had dug into his flesh.

"Now, give me your hand, Draco," Lucius directed.

"No, we have to confirm the premises first. I don't want either of us to be surprised at words dictated by the other," Draco reasoned.

Lucius appeared to be restraining from rolling his eyes. "Alright then, son. What would you like to decide beforehand? I will obviously be asking you the questions, there is no question as to that aspect of this."

"I'm afraid there may be an issue with that," Draco replied smoothly.

"And that would be what?" he threatened.

"Well, since the task we are agreeing to, should I escape, applies to you, it would only make sense for me to ask you the questions," Draco countered.

"Fine then! Anything more?"

Draco cleared his throat and hesitated for a split second before plunging dangerously into the inevitable territory. "First, the rules will stand thus: If I manage to escape from here, you will never interfere or grace me with your presence, unless I deem it necessary, again; ever; for the rest of my existence. Understood?"

"Naturally," he conceded. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Draco responded. "You will be forbidden, from the point the spell goes into effect, to ever put me under the oblivious curse again."

"Draco, Draco, what do you take me for? Would I be as harsh as to wipe your memory clean after such a spell was performed?"

Draco laughed in response to this.

"Well then, if that is all, shall we get this over with? And I want no griping after this has been done. It will be set in stone and that's that. No arguing over changing the rules," Lucius conferred.

"Naturally, as soon as you agree to my last sentiment. You must consent to this in the time of questioning, agreed?"

"Alright then! Agreed," Lucius spat. "But if I agree to that, then you must agree to have a time limit on the length of time this spell will be under effect. I think a month should be satisfactory enough time for you to try your luck. My attention span has shortened over the years and watching you try to escape will only amuse me for so long. Now can we get this over with?" Draco hesitated for a moment more, than nodded. "Goyle, come here you great oaf." Goyle sidled forward. "Now, take your wand out and place it on our hands, if you will." The task was done and Lucius praised him. "Good, now. Draco, are you ready?"

Draco nodded once more, before looking into his father's eyes. It was the first time he had allowed himself to look into those slate gray eyes ever since he had woken up. Cold, hard, endless hatred graced those eyes to the brim as they stared back into Draco's own stormy opals.

"Do you, Lucius Malfoy, agree that, should I escape from this place before a month from today, you will never interfere in my life again without my consent?"

"I do," Lucius whispered. A jet of red light burst out of Goyle's wand and wrapped itself around the two clasped hands, like a snake, slithering it's way around it's pray; choking and squeezing the life out if it.

"Will you agree to stay, at the very least, an eyes distance away from my presence, should I escape the building I am currently sitting in within three months time?"

"I will," Lucius whispered. Another jet of red light followed in the opposite direction of the first, so that two ropes of light captivated the two hands.

"And, from the moment this spell goes into effect to the moment it wears off, will you, Lucius Malfoy, agree to cease performing, or letting anyone else perform, the oblivious charm on my person? Should I go under the oblivious curse or any other memory removing charm, potion, or spell, before this spell activates or fails to activate, all bets shall be deemed off?"

Lucius stared into Draco's eyes and whispered in a cold, harsh, accusing voice, "I will." A third jet of light followed the other two, burning the skin around their hands as it licked their pale flesh.

"And finally, do you agree that, should I fail to escape from this structure, I will be put under a spell so powerful that none but my true love can lift it from my body? If I fail, I will fall into a deep slumber, which has all the outward appearances of death?

Lucius actually smiled at the word choice Draco had chosen to use here. "I do," he hissed. The spell was complete. A fourth jet of light burst out of the wand and wrapped itself tightly around their adjoined wrists. As it coiled around and grazed it's starting point again, the entire web of spells turned a bright red color, and flashed a blinding light around the room.

Only one sound could be heard in the room as Draco sat there in wonder. Lucius' insane laughter; ringing around the room as it bounced off of the metal walls and pounded, mercilessly, into his astonished ears.

* * *

_Two years earlier_

Hermione's hand felt like lead as her hand reached out for the doorknob in her flat. Her hand grasped the doorknob, twisted it around, and pulled it hard. The door swung open to reveal gray clouds blotching the once perfect sky. Raindrops fell softly onto her skin as she walked out, her back rigid, into the cold afternoon. Her neighbor, Nancy Farmcook stood outside as well; a raincoat draped across her shoulders as she pulled weeds from her flowerbed.

"Morning, Hermione!" The women called across the sidewalk. "Interesting weather, isn't it?"

Yes, it certainly was interesting weather. The sky looked angry, she thought, as she scanned its horizon with her eyes. And it had every right to be. "Morning, Ms. Farmcook," Hermione responded in monotone.

The women across the street stopped weeding as Hermione's response floated over to her. Her eyes traveled up and down Hermione' s body, evaluating her clothing choice. She had on a long gray T-shirt and dark blue jeans, faded from use. No coat adorned her body and her hair clung to her cheeks and neck, as its once bouncy curls hung limp and wavy. For a moment, Hermione thought Nancy was going to comment on her attire, but seemed to think better of it as she turned away after waving goodbye and continuing her weeding.

Hermione's legs seemed to be moving on their own accord as they brought her closer and closer to her destination. As she rounded the corner at the end of the deserted road, she turned into a dark alleyway and hid behind a dumpster. Breathing heavily, she sighed and concentrated all her energy on apperating to the church located just south of downtown Diagon Alley.

Five seconds passed, and finally, she felt the familiar tugging sensation starting around her sides as she disappeared from the street corner she had stood moments before. She could feel the air around her diminishing as the planes surrounding her body squeezed her very essence into the most confined space she could fit. Just as she feared she would lose all oxygen in her body, she could feel the sensations diminishing as she felt the new sensation of being squeezed through a tube overcome her and was replaced in front of the church in Diagon Alley.

A bell tolled, signaling the turn of the hour. She breathed a sigh of relief and walked through the heavy wooden doors towering over her head. As she heard the soft thud of the door closing behind her, she allowed her eyes to scan the room and take in her surroundings. The pews seemed to stretch on forever until they finally reached the front of the church where a single step separated the lower level from the minister's podium. Behind the podium sat an altar, with flowers adorning it's surface, and black drapes hanging from the ceiling. In front of the altar lay a coffin; polished, closed, and stone cold.

Hermione felt all the breath leave her despite the plentiful supply of oxygen in the room. She began to feel lightheaded and she could feel her eyes sparkling with tears, once again. When she finally reached the front of the church, all of her remaining breath hitched in her throat as she read the sign hovering in the air…

_Here lies Draco Malfoy_

_Beloved son_

A sob escaped her lips as blinding realizations flashed through her body. He was dead, he was gone, and he was never coming back. Dropping to her knees, she covered her face with her hands and allowed herself to cry; hard, body wracking sobs. The tears escaped down her face, but she felt no relief.

She would never feel any relief, because her relief had passed on into another realm… a realm she was unable to pass into in her present state.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry! I am so sorry but I had to end it that way:) It. Was. Just. So. Perfect! I swear! Lol. Anyway, I know there may be certain parts of this chapter which would fall under the category of "extremely confusing," but for those of you who still haven't read, _Love is Pain,_ that may be part of it. The other part of it may just be because I haven't explained anything yet, and it will be explained more thoroughly with time. I myself am having a bit of trouble remembering the time frames of this story, so I've laid them out for you below.**

**FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE PLANNING ON READING _LOVE IS PAIN_, GO READ IT RIGHT _NOW_! I HAVE SPOILED THE END OF THE STORY BELOW, SO READ NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE! IT'S ONE CHAPTER LONG, GUYS!**

**A: Draco leaves Hermione (_Love is Pain_)**

**B: 1 year later - Hermione reads in a newspaper article that rebellious Death Eaters killed Draco (_Love is Pain_)**

**C: mere months after B - Hermione marries Harry**

**D: two years after C - Chapter 1 begins**

**E: The end of chapter 2 takes place between B and C, probably closer to C**

**So I don't know if that helps at all, but it's there just in case I managed to clear anything up. Read and Review! This would be a great chapter to hear your thoughts since it may have been confusing! I love positive feedback as well as constructive criticism. Thanks for reading!**

**grabs ice-cream and sits down to write the next chapter**

**PhoenixCGandAC, Caitlyn**


	3. The Vain of Life

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter? Me? I wish! Nah, I'm just using her perfectly thought out world to create a little something of my own. So, without further ado, read and enjoy._

**Chapter 3**: The Vain of Life

Draco's head had drooped down to rest on his chest as he sat on the cold floor, hovering somewhere between sleep and… well, not sleep. His feet stuck out behind him as his upper torso rested upon his calves so that he was in a kneeling position of a sort. Eyes fluttering open, he looked around and sighed at the bland scenery. He felt encased as he stared at the tall, slate gray walls, their depths towering above him. The nearest wall looked to be four and a half, five feet, away from the manacles gripping both of his wrists.

Lucius had left soon after the spell had been complete and left Draco to fend for himself. As the words of the spell echoed in his head, he searched his mind, trying desperately to figure out a way to break free of the chamber hiding him from the world. A noise broke the silence as a door creaked open to Draco's right. Goyle strode into the room, carrying a tray of food consisting of cold oatmeal slopped onto a plate precariously. Behind him stood Lucius, watching Draco's demeanor closely with his eyes.

"Thank you, Goyle, that will be all. Just set the plate down about two feet in front of Draco, will you?" It was more of an order then a request, and Lucius watched as it was fulfilled. Draco's stomach raised its head and growled at the chance of food, sitting so close and yet so far away.

The door closed as Goyle left the room, and Lucius strode forward. "How does it smell, Draco? You've been denied the chance of food for so long, what does it feel like to finally have it within your reach?"

Draco was perfectly aware that he could simply twist his body around to close the distance between himself and the plate, but he was unwilling to lose his last shred of dignity in front of his father. He therefore did not answer.

"I asked you a question, son, and I expect and answer." Another moment of silence lapped before Lucius bellowed, "Imperio."

All the pain and anguish suddenly left Draco's body as a wave of pleasure washed over him. He felt light as a feather, as though he had not a care in the world. He wanted to stand up, kick over the wall, and run to Hermione's side. Even such a drastic measure seemed immaterial at the moment. He was free to stand up, dance, or do whatever he liked; and he did. He stood up, his knees and legs supporting him for the first time since he had found himself in this room. Just as he was about to jump in the air, he heard a voice penetrate his mind.

"_Tell me how it feels. Just say you don't like it. Say it feels like hell. Say you would rather be adopted by Satin himself then be denied this chance at food."_

"I don't like it," Draco spoke in a loud crisp voice. "I think it's hell." He heard a laugh emit from somewhere to the side of him, but he still didn't care. He wanted to do something bold, something to make a statement.

The voice entered his head again. _"Now listen carefully, Draco. I want you to eat the food. Stuff your face into it and eat the food. Do it now!"_

Draco smiled at the seemingly simple task and was about to fulfill the voices request when another voice entered his mind. _But why? It would be so undignified to _stuff_ your face into a plate of food. Malfoy's deserve to eat food off of spotless tables with golden utensils, not stuff their faces into a cold plate of food on the floor._

"_Eat the food. Eat it NOW! NOW I said!"_

"No" Draco said. "I don't really want to."

"_Eat the food NOW Draco!"_

"No, I don't think I will." And suddenly, the feeling left him and all his pain, anguish, and fear replaced itself around him, like a blanket of misery.

Lucius was starring daggers into his flesh. He was angry; he wanted revenge. No one said no to Lucius Malfoy. "You will pay for that, Draco. For that, you will be denied food once again." And he swept, with a swish of his cloak, out of the room.

Draco groaned, his stomach roaring painfully as his heart pounded against his chest. He wanted to scream: to let out his anger. Hunger had dug itself into his body and he needed relief. He wanted to scream, to punch something, to relieve himself from this mess. He roared a howl of anger and kicked the wall at his side with his foot, trying to sink it into the wall's solid depths. His leg throbbed as it struck the side of the building, the force of the blow pulsing in his legs. He let out another scream of agony, this one out of pain alone. He ceased his efforts and allowed himself to lie there, panting on the cold floor. After about a minute, his eyes drifted up to the wall he had kicked and stared daggers at it, as if accusing it of his current distress. Discovering a new rush of hatred and anger, he used his right, uninjured leg to kick the wall again, this time at the vain where it met the back wall.

As he kicked it, he could feel his leg pounding from the force of the blow but more importantly, he felt the seam shift beneath his foot.

Was this the weakness Lucius had mentioned?

0000

Three weeks passed by in which time Draco devoted his time and efforts into healing his body and strengthening his legs to the best of his ability. He tried to remember handy muggle remedies he might have heard somewhere and mixed them with his own common sense to supply his aching body parts with the proper supplements. As the weeks passed by, Lucius dropped by every once and a while to check on Draco's stature. Once every week, Draco was granted a small portion of some type of cold oatmeal and a splash of water on his face to sustain his life through the required time period. But Draco could not have cared less. He was getting stronger, and that was all that mattered. Finally, as the end of the third week drew to a close, Draco's efforts paid off and his left leg became of functional use. Realizing this caused a jolt in Draco's demeanor; he had one week left to attempt an escape from these dungeons. Unfortunately, around the time this discovery was made, Lucius decided to pay Draco a little visit.

As Draco heard the door of the dank room creak open, he immediately fell to the floor and thrust his leg out in front of him in the position he had adapted as a neutral sign of his broken state.

"Still wallowing around in here, are you? Hmm, now that won't do," he said lazily. "Crucio!"

Pain shot through Draco's body like none he had felt before. He had acquired hope, which in turn had made him more susceptible to dark magic; Lucius knew this and was hoping to break him with this knowledge. Draco's body squirmed around on the floor as he felt is entire body throb with the pain of thousands of needles shoving themselves beneath the surface of his skin. Before, he had been able to anticipate this and had been able to carry his mind to a different place; a happy place: a place with Hermione. Now, though, Lucius watched as his spell became the ruin of Draco's progress.

Draco's left leg was trying desperately to hold onto any forms of health it could, as it grew weaker and weaker with the spell. Finally, in a last resort, the leg jerked out from under Draco's body and kicked the seam of the wall nearest Draco with agonizing force in a last, desperate attempt to keep the pain at bay. A blinding light swept over Draco and he shot backwards in surprise, jerking and twitching all the while.

Immediately, Lucius stopped, pulling his wand away from his son's shaking form and walking over to the wall Draco had kicked as he had been immersed in the throws of the spell. Draco panted heavily on the floor. His entire body ached and felt thoroughly exhausted. Lucius glared down at him and examined the effects on the wall.

A thin beam of light could now be seen leaking through the sliver in the wall. For a moment, Draco thought Lucius intended to kick him, but a second later, he did something else… something much worse.

"Levicorpus," Lucius hissed. Draco's body began to float into the air, higher and higher as it soared above the ground. As his head became inches away from knocking into the ceiling, he saw a flash of red light shoot out of his father's wand and was thrown backwards against the wall; pinned there on display for the entire world to see. With another sweep of his wand, ropes fell down from the ceiling and Draco's arms were entwined with them. His legs dangled so close to the floor, it was painful; for no matter how hard he tried, he could touch the ground with no part of his foot.

A smug look fell over Lucius' face as he walked toward the door. "You haven't been put under any illusions of late so I decided, a little change of… _drapery_, was in order." He flung open the door and departed into the depths of its malice.

* * *

"Hermione, I'm sorry. I just… I had to warn you of the situation at hand. If things continue to progress as they have over the past year, your days working here will be short lived."

Hermione sighed as she gazed thoughtfully into her boss' kind face. She loved her job. Shortly after graduating from Hogwarts, she had begun her training to work for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She had clinched a job working to protect Werewolves from the mistreatment they suffered each and every day of their lives. She had made countless speeches to the wizarding community about the unfairness they suffered because of their species. Not long before Draco left Hermione for good, her boss had offered her a job with a member of her department, her choice, who would proceed to work with her to create a potion Werewolves could take to transform them back into their original form; permanently. She had accepted on the spot and had begun the search for a partner when her heart had been broken in half by Draco Malfoy. Trying to become realistic about the amount of work she would be able to finish after this devastating incident, she had let her head of department know she would not be able to create the potion at the given time; a first sign that something was, indeed wrong. Since when did Hermione look at work realistically? The enthusiasm, which had helped her seal the job in the first place, had left her, permanently. She seemed to be living as a corpse each and every day. Simply performing the tasks she was assigned and no longer exceeding expectation.

And here she sat. In her boss' office being lectured on her status as an employee and the prospects, which sat in her path if she continued to work the way she had become accustom.

"I'm sorry Mr. Beuford, but I've just… I'm sorry. I promise I'll try harder," Hermione explained. She didn't want to lose her job. She would never live that down with herself no matter how depressed she became.

"That's just it, though, Mrs. Granger. You've been telling me that for a month now and I'm afraid I just haven't seen enough improvement on your part. If you hadn't come into this office with such high recommendations from your teachers, an amazing source of enthusiasm, and as the wife of Harry James Potter, I doubt I would have given you so many warnings. Never the less, be that as it may, I'm going to give you one more shot. You have one more month to show me you can improve your work or you're gone. That's it." His lips formed a grimace as he watched her features portray nothing to him. She was as unreadable as stone as she sat there, listening to his harsh words spiral from his lips.

"Listen, I know you've been having a hard time lately but I'm having a hard time figuring out what happened. I've asked countless people if they know anything about what happened and I've received the same answer every time. No one seems to know why such a change occurred in your demeanor. Only one thing seems consistent with everyone, though; something happened about two years ago, which changed your life. Now I know it's none of my business, but if there's anything I can do to help you out… anything at all… don't hesitate to ask."

And with that, she rose from her seat and thanked the man for his kind words. She walked swiftly out of the room and packed her things before heading home for the rest of the day.

0000

"Hermione, I'm home!" she heard Harry's voice call from the doorway. A loud _thump_ sounded on the ground near the door and she heard his footsteps echo down the hallway as they headed for the kitchen: Hermione's place of refuge.

The door swung open and in walked the only wizard to win _hottest guy_ in a muggle magazine twice. THAT'S how popular he had become. Winning the war had definitely come with a price of fame. Hermione tried to smile at him as he walked over to the kitchen table and pulled her out of the chair. His lips found hers easily as his hands snaked their way around her frail body. It was a sweet kiss with no pun intended. Seconds later, he pulled away and allowed his finger to graze over her protruding cheekbones.

"Every time I see you, you seem to fall away a little more. You're getting even less sleep then before…" His hand fell away from her face and he stepped back, letting his arms drop to his sides. He kept his eyes locked with hers for a second longer before turning away and heading for the cupboard where he found a bottle of butterbeer waiting for him. "Your boss came to call today," he said, his voice even as the words escaped from his lips.

"Oh, did he?" Hermione asked, not wanting to give too much away.

Harry swiveled around to face her. "Yes, he did." He took a swig of the drink and locked eyes with her again. "I don't know what to do anymore, Hermione. I want to help you so desperately, but I'm at a loss for what to do." He walked forward so that his hands touched her shoulders as he spoke. "I married you knowing you would never love me the way you loved him," he whispered quietly. "But Draco isn't coming back, Hermione. You've got to move on. He wouldn't have wanted…"

"Don't." Hermione hissed. She closed her eyes and stepped back from his hold. Opening them again and glaring menacingly at him, she said in a cold, even voice, "Don't say his name. You have _no_ idea what he would have wanted. You _hated_ him."

"Hate is a strong word," Harry countered. "I did not hate _him_, I hated what he stood for back in school. I did not know the man you loved and for that I'm sorry. Any man who could have stolen your heart like this is worthy of my friendship and love, no matter who they are or who they were before."

Hermione closed her eyes again as she felt the full force of those words sink into her. A pang of guilt washed over her as she realized what she had said. Stepping forward into his arms, she allowed Harry to embrace her in a hug as she whispered in an even tone, "I'm sorry, Harry. I shouldn't have said that."

Harry let his chin rest on top of her head as he sighed. "You had every right to say what you said. It's not my business."'

"But that's just it," Hermione said. "It should be your business. I feel so awful for being such a terrible wife. I should be the woman you've always dreamed of I mean, you're Harry Potter! You deserve so much more then me. I can't give you what you need in a wife and I hate myself for that."

"Don't," Harry whispered. "I love you. I don't care if you love me back the way I love you but I love you with all my heart. There is no other woman I wish I were married to, but you. I want to help you through this. We'll find a way to pick you up on your feet again." He kissed the top of her head and held her at arms length. "I'm… I'm leaving in two days. I know this is a bad time to tell you this after what we were just discussing, but I needed to let you know." Seeing Hermione's stricken face, he hastily added, "It's not like that. It's just, my team has found record of a fairly recent building that's surrounded in Dark Magic. We're planning on checking it out just to make sure there aren't escapades of death eaters trying to reform themselves again. I shouldn't be gone for long, I just thought I'd let you know."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. Harry smiled at her and kissed her hand before leaving to catch up on work in another room of the house. Just as he reached the door, Hermione called, "Um, just, out of curiosity, where is this building located?"

Harry grimaced and said, "America," before striding out of the room.

**A/N: Complete Déjà vu, I know. grins evilly So, clasps hands together leave me a review and tell me what you think. I LOVE reading reviews, I really do! If you hate it with a passion, tell me! If there's a specific part you think I could improve, TELL ME! Okay, enough groveling, I don't like to grovel.**

**PhoenixTearsCG**


	4. Where the Dead Linger

_Disclaimer: I don't own anything so please don't sue me... I don't want to hire a lawyer. :)_

**Chapter 4: **Where the Dead Linger

Draco's eyes quivered as they opened the next day to reveal the same thread of light still shining through the crack in the wall. Looking down at his form, he was surprised to find his legs dangling in midair with the ground just below his feet. And, in an instant, the memories all came back to him.

His wrists burned from the ropes holding them captive, cutting daggers into its flesh. He could smell the scents of fresh blood dripping down his arms from the points his wrists had been rubbed raw. The ropes scratchy exterior cut angrily at his flesh as their needle like claws drew out his blood. His shoulders ached from the strain of their forced position and his arms each felt as though all the life had been sucked from them; their once fleshy color had turned pale as snow from the lack of blood being supplied to them.

Groaning aloud, he allowed his eyes to wander to his wrists for a split second to assess their remaining use. Deciding there was life left in them to spare, he slowly raised his legs away from their hanging position and used his abdomen to pull his knees against his chest. The pressure against his wrists tightened considerably; he could feel the rope against his thin bones as he forced his weight upon their weakened forms. Panting from the strain, he swiftly swung his body around to face the crack in the wall head on and kicked the vain with all his might. A shudder traveled down the vain in the wall as it reluctantly moved away from its initial position, allowing more non-synthetic light to flood the room. The sudden burst of luminosity blinded Draco's eyes as his pupils tried to adjust from their previously dilated forms.

Resisting the urge to scream from the pain in his wrists, he slowly lowered his feet to their dangling position once more. Right on queue, Draco watched as his father's foot banged open the door to the room. Glaring at Draco, his eyes full of malice, he walked over to the crack in the wall and ran his finger up and down the fissure. He turned back around to Draco and the malice disappeared into something else… something, if possible, even cooler. The expression now plastered to Lucius' face had caused his lips to curve up into a smile as he watched Draco, hanging and panting, his entire body weak from the strain on his wrists. A pale finger slowly inched out to touch Draco's face, causing the man being invaded to recoil immediately, glaring and snarling at the unwanted presence so close to his pointed features.

"Now, son. There are plenty of other ways to partake in a work out for your body, which do _not_ include damaging my buildings in the process. I am going to have to ask you not to damage these highly protected buildings while you are visiting. Otherwise, I may just have to move you elsewhere." The words could have been taken as a way to escape this eerie place, but Draco knew that his only chance of survival was within these walls. If he moved now, he might ruin his chances of escape forever.

"Therefore, I would watch my step if I were you… or, your feet as the case may be. I daresay you won't be taking too many steps now that you've changed your… position." He laughed, a cold, heartless laugh, which chilled Draco to the bone. "Now," Lucius asked, his feet carrying him to the other side of the room so he could watch Draco from a distance. "Have you noticed a considerable change in your well being since you were hung up in this position?"

Silence met his words as Draco struggled to maintain his even breathing.

"Tut tut, that won't do, now will it?" Lucius asked in a mocking tone. "Answer the question, Draco…. _Imperio!"_

For the second time in his memory, Draco felt his body release all the pain and anguish it had been storing…. Only this time, it was a much greater lift of pain. Where before he had been relieved of the pain stored mentally and from his battered form lying on the ground, he was now lifted of his bruised mentality, and physical well being damaged still further from his new position. It was the most relieved feeling he could ever remember feeling in his life…

Except, he was hanging in the air.

Well, no matter, he would just use his wings to fly around the room. He looked at the ceiling and tried to reach up his hands…. He wanted to touch it, to feel its surface. Only, his hands were bound and his body was being pulled downward by some strange force.

Squinting in a frustrated manner, he looked at the only other body in the room as if asking for guidance. He was rewarded immediately.

_Draco,_ he heard the voice whisper. _I want you to tell me what you are feeling. Are you frustrated, scared, lonely? Can you feel the pain in your body welling up inside of you and threatening to take over your subconscious? _

And this time, he only knew one answer.

"Yes. I feel lonely, frustrated, and scared. My wrists hurt and I want to fly."

A bark of laughter echoed around the room, and the curse was lifted.

A dull clapping echoed around the room as Draco came back to earth. The pain in his body pounded in his ears and collided with his mind as it washed over him once more in a wave of fury. Lucius was clapping at his astounding performance.

"Very good, very good indeed, Draco. You want to fly… now that's a new one!" Lucius walked toward the door and called over his shoulder, "Maybe by the time I come back, you'll have sprouted wings, flown off to London, and I'll be a muggle!"

Draco looked at him his heart thundering against his chest. Did his father know he still harbored that desire? To reunite himself with London and all of it's occupants?

Well, not all of them. He wasn't too keen on meeting Potter and the Weasel but he guessed it inevitable if he wished to get near Hermione again.

He watched his father's features closely as Lucius opened the door and turned around to face him once more. "But I doubt it."

And he was gone; so unlike the pain which Draco was still trying to swallow once more.

* * *

Harry turned toward Hermione once more, his eyes alight with question and fear for her. "Hermione, I won't go if you don't want me to. I can have the rest of my team go without me."

"Harry, go. It's fine; I'll be all right. It was… just a bit of a shock for me. That's all. You have to understand what it sounded like… '_I'm leaving you. I'm going to America._' It's just… that's exactly what _he_ said before…" Hermione trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Harry walked toward her once more and wrapped her in a loving embrace. "I know. I know what it must have sounded like and I'm sorry for that. I promise," he held her at arms length and whispered forcefully, while staring into her eyes, "I will _never_ leave you."

And with that, he walked out the door and watched as honey brown eyes followed his every move. A moment ensued with both of them staring at one another, their eyes fixed through a window pain… and then it was broken. Hermione tore her eyes away and walked towards the kitchen, and Harry took off down the street.

He found his team of Aurors waiting for him there; their heads pressed together as they talked silently about the plan once they reached their destination. Harry joined them.

"Alright," he muttered in a low voice. "Lyra and Amanda, I want you to search for a side entrance along the east side of the building. Tonks, you come with me to search along the west side. Kingsley and Harper can go for the South and Bencone and Ugie can take the north. I _expect_ for one of us to find the main entrance. When the entrance is found, tap your galleons and we'll…"

"We know, Harry," Lyra sighed. She was a thin woman with shoulder length brown hair, currently tied up in a ponytail on top of her head, and a kind face. "The coins will burn in everyone else's pockets signaling the entrance has been found. It was your wife's brilliant idea back in your _fifth year!_ Now. Are we ready to go?"

Harry glared at her for a second for shrugging the matter off. "No. There's one more thing. Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, when the entrance is found, the group who _found_ it will breach the building and try to figure out everything they can from the _inside_. If you meet _anyone_ in the building, do not attack him or her unless they attack first. If excess help is needed, tap the coins again with your wand. We'll only be expecting them to burn once, so if they burn again, we'll know that you need a hand. Now; are there any questions?"

No one responded.

"Alright then. Let's go. You remember the picture of the building?" A small nod coiled around the group. "Then on my word, apperate to the picture. Ready?" Harry took a steadying breath and spoke in a firm but quiet voice: "Three, two, one, GO!"

His heart skipped a beat in anticipation even before he reached his destination.

0000

As Harry's feet collided with the firm ground, it took him a second to adjust to his new surroundings. Contrasting harshly with the light encased street he had left, the woods he now stood rooted in were cold and dank, allowing little light to pass through their thickly woven branches. He heard the sound of Tonks' breathing catch in her throat as she, too, examined where they had landed.

The trees around them had stopped rather abruptly a few feet back, their trunks creating a wall of trees behind them. In front of where they stood sat a clearing, its premises shimmering in magical contamination. A lean building sat just off the center of the clearing and had an ominous look about it. Its walls were hard as stone and made of steel, reaching ten feet above the ground, the structure massively expanding in width rather then height.

Harry walked cautiously toward it, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. Footprints had trodden upon the earthy ground and left traces of their recent existence imprinted in the soil. Harry followed the trail of footprints with his eyes, which extended to his right in the direction he knew the Sabine sisters would soon be heading. To his left, he watched as the wall turned abruptly toward the west side of the building and extended menacingly, as if daring him to follow its course. Harry took a deep breath and motioned to Tonks with his head to follow him.

Five minutes later, after thoroughly examining the grounds he had sought to examine, he felt Hermione's ingenious coins burn hot in his pocket. Fishing it out, he looked at the surface of the coin and saw, written in small, cramped letters on the surface of the galleon: **WE'RE INSIDE**.

Harry looked at Tonks and knew that she, too, had felt the alert. Nodding at her, he continued his search of the grounds and finally, with resignation, walked toward the wall and decided to try examining its smooth surface. Barely a minute after, he gasped in surprise as his hand found a fissure in the vain where the west wall met the south. His forehead wrinkling in concentration, he motioned to Tonks with his head and looked critically at the gap.

A small crack had shuddered up the wall and ended at the top, maybe half an inch wide from the outside. Prying his fingers inside the gap, he cautiously tried to stick his fingers through to feel whatever was inside and within reach.

Almost at once, he heard a small intake of breath and fell backward, his fingers catching on the wall as they were forced out of the crevice, blood spurting from a fresh cut. Ignoring the pain, he quickly leaned in to the wall once more and stuck his eye through the gap. Pitch-blackness surrounded the interior room. Frowning once more, he experimentally stuck his fingers inside the wall once more and this time, felt something hard collide with his fingertips, as they were smashed to the wall. Wheezing in surprise, he backed away, his fingers red and imprinted with a mark… a mark from the bottom of a shoe.

Turning to Tonks, he silently held up his fingers for her to see and then turned away once more. This time, he found a stick on the ground and used it to stick in the crevice. Griping it harshly, he slowly pushed the stick towards the wall so the crack in the wall would continue to expand. After moving the wall half an inch more, sweat dripping from his forehead, he peered inside, quickly igniting his wand with a muttered, "Lumos."

And there, dangling from the ceiling in the dark room, hung Draco Malfoy: a broken, bloody, horrifying mess, but alive.

Oh yes… alive.

* * *

Draco closed his eyes, trying to play cheerful pictures in his mind… trying to do anything to take his mind off of the pain radiating through his body. The only thing he could think of that was remotely happy, though, was Hermione. Therefore, he focused his mind on her, his heart beating faster against his chest and his mind working to conjure a picture of her in his mind. But the only pictures, which he seemed capable of seeing, were those of his last meeting with her. Those moments when his heart had been shredded apart by her departing sobs. Those chocolate brown eyes, dark with confusion and quivering as the Nile River flowed silently out of her eye sockets.

This new anguish and pain did nothing to help him swallow the physical pain he had been trying to endure before. Desperate now for a source of ingenuity to spark through his thoughts, he forced himself to picture her hair, the feel of it between his fingers, her lips, warm as they softly caressed his own, her scent, plain and ordinary and yet the most powerful and wonderful scent he could remember ever smelling. He could literally feel her soft, warm hands as they touched his cold face, he could see her sad, brown eyes as they looked at him with remorse, watch as her lips turned down in sadness from his broken state. His eyes flew open as if determined to see her in front of him.

And there she was. Her hair framing her softly chiseled face, her body thin and lengthy as she stood in front of him. His eyes found her face, gazing hopefully at her in hopes of finding reassurance and happiness. Instead, he saw the traces of tears as they trailed down her face. She dropped to her knees in front of him and rested her face in her hands, crying silent tears. He longed with all the passion he possessed to drop down and hold her as she cried out her remorse. He longed to soak his shirt with her tears and feel her pain transfer to him. His ears seemed to awaken and they picked up a soft voice, breaking the silence in the room.

"_No…_" the voice whispered, and Draco was reminded of the words she must have uttered not a moment ago as they flooded through his brain. For she had said them once before, and they were last words he could remember ever hearing from her.

"_Draco_," she cried, her voice cracking_. "No. Don't. Don't go. Draco, please. Please! Don't go! No!" _Tear after tear erupted from her eyes, running down her face as she sobbed into her hands.

"I'm here, Hermione. I'm right here. And I'm not going anywhere," he whispered, his voice oddly high pitched and wavering as he attempted to speak to the person in front of him. But she didn't seem to be able to hear him. She continued crying, her shoulders shuddering as her entire body wracked with the sobs discharging from her mouth. Draco cast his eyes away; he couldn't bear to look at her in this state, and yet felt powerless to control his gaze. They sought her body out once more on their own accord, and widened in surprise. The body before him was becoming transparent and was shimmering; it's colors slowly swirling to become the same as those behind it. And, as quickly as the mirage had come, it left… leaving in its wake a broken man.

0000

Draco roared in anger, his body shivering from the emotional anguish now overtaking him. As he heard the last of his echoed pain dissipate from the room, he heard another noise… a different noise: the noise of footsteps. Draco looked toward the direction the noise had come and expected the door to his room to burst open, but, instead, found his gaze lingering upon the cracked wall. Frowning at it, he listened again, intent on hearing the noise once more. And he did. The footsteps pattered closer and closer until they finally stopped.

Mere moments later, Draco watched and gasped as a hand slithered through the crack in the wall and heard another person, a man, gasp as well. The hand retreated for a moment, and then, very slowly, crept into the crevice once more. This time, Draco was ready for it. Thinking the only person who could possibly be on the other side of the wall to be his father, he raised his legs to his chest and thrust them with all his might at the intruding visitor.

A moan of pain sounded outside the wall, and then, a stick stuck its head in instead. Draco watched it with mingled curiosity as the wall was separated; it's heavy walls groaning as they departed from one another. After the wall had been separated an entire inch, the stick was removed and replaced by an eye. A pale, blue eye, which Draco was sure, confirmed his assumptions.

A second later, realization dawned upon him.

* * *

**A/N: So that's the end of chapter 4. I do hope you like it and are curious to hear what you think of the story so far. hint, hint wink, wink And, Harry's intrusion in this chapter… hate it or love it? I had to get Draco out of Lucius' evil grasp couldn't think of any other way to promote the action. So there you go. Like it or now you will be seeing more of him so be forewarned.**

**Thanks to you all and I do hope you'll continue reading! It makes my day to see my reads increase!**

**Yours,**

**PhoenixTearsCG**


	5. The Tears That Never End

Disclaimer: Not only do I not own Harry Potter, or anything from that marvelous world, I do not own Lord of the Rings either. I stole a line or two from the movie in here and just incase someone thinks, "Hey, that's not hers! We should sue her!" I thought I'd admit defeat. **Chapter 5:** The Tears That Never End 

Silence pounded in his ears as a pale, blond man lay beneath a thin blanket, listening to the nothingness around him. His eyes squinted from beneath his thin eyebrows and darted back and forth, first to the flap of the tent, then to the man laying next to him.

Something was going to happen.

He could feel it in the way the rocks imprinted themselves upon his skin; smell it in the way the sweat and blood mixed themselves with the biting air around him; taste it with each breath he took; hear it in the nonexistent sounds; the sounds of waiting.

"It is the deep breath before the plunge," came the man's deep voice. The blonde man's eyes quickly sought the ones of his companion. "They're coming, Draco… can't you feel it?"

Draco said nothing. He had felt it… he could still feel it. They were being followed. By whom, only time would tell.

"My arm… the mark… it's been growing more and more apparent when I had almost believed it to be gone. My dreams," the man's voice had become frantic but still no louder then a whisper. "They're haunted by shadowy figures." The man's eyes sought out Draco's and searched them as if fearing an answer. "A man… a man clad all in black. He grows clearer and clearer as my dreams become more and more consistent. I… he turns around and lifts his head and I… I can see his face. Pointed and cold… it's you, but it isn't. He whispers into the night… I can see him." His voice grew stronger. "He's coming for us… for you. He will find you. There _is_ no escape."

Draco's demeanor had stayed consistent the entire time. Still, he did not answer. His face portrayed nothing. "Surely you must have felt it," the man said.

Draco looked at him. "I have felt it," he whispered for the first time. "And he _will_ find me… so let him. I am not scared of my father." The man looked slightly fearful. "Get some sleep, Zabini. You're going to need it. In the morning, you must run. I won't let him find you…"

"No!" Zabini hissed. "I must see him. He's haunted my dreams for so long… I have to find him."

"You do not know my father. You don't know what he's capable of. A coward he may be, but he knows what he's doing. You must go."

"Draco, let me fight him. You can run. We… we can switch bodies. I've been carrying around Polyjuice potion just incase a situation such as this presents itself. We can both drink some, turn into each other. I have to fight him." Determination had bound itself within his eyes as he stared at Draco.

"You owe me nothing," Draco insisted. "You cannot do this, I won't let you."

"You saved my life last night. I would have died out there if you hadn't saved me. That man would have killed me for stealing his eggs."

"But you didn't steal them, and I didn't save you. I merely brought you to saf_er _ground and helped you out. Your strong will saved you."

"Please, Draco. Just for an hour. They're drawing closer."

Draco's face fell for barely an instant as he contemplated his words. "Alright. But just for an hour."

Silently, the potion was passed between the two men and they each gulped the gruesome liquid down like men dying of thirst. Gritting his teeth, Draco forced his body to remain still as the change coursed through his veins.

Not a minute had passed before the changing, squirming feeling ceased to exist. The two men said nothing more… a silent agreement had been reached that didn't need to be spoken aloud.

The silence continued to pound in Draco ears as he lay there, listening… _thump, thump, thump_… like the drum you hear as you walk down the path leading to the gallows. The icy air around him had long since found its way through the thin blanket lying uselessly across his body, but Draco did not tremble; he could feel nothing.

And suddenly… it stopped. The pounding in his ears ceased to exist and immediately replaced itself with something else… he couldn't tell what.

Draco strained his ears to hear something, anything. And then, he heard it. The faint sound of muffled breathing had reached his ears from the far corner of the tent… the corner where his comrade was not. Acting instinctively, his body went rigid and began to rise from the floor.

Barely a split second later, Draco felt a hand grope his face, covering his mouth. He growled in the back of his throat and struggled to see his captor, but the man, or woman, was too quick for him.

"Grab the boy, I'll take care of the rat!" The man holding him commanded.

A man clad all in black lifted Zabini, disguised as Draco, from the ground. Zabini snarled as he was dragged from the tent, Draco forced to accompany him. Fire shone brightly against the dark, black sky as it burned contently upon the surrounding tents. Smoke issued from the pillars of orange flame, the smell of his new surrounding now ensnaring his nostrils.

Draco struggled, trying desperately to wriggle free of his captive's hold. Zabini stood in front of him; his wand held aloft as he pointed the thin rod at Malfoy Sr. "I've been waiting for you father," he spoke in a harsh tone. "To long have you haunted my dreams."

"You will pay for your crimes and loyalty against the Dark Lord, my son. You will beg for the end to save you long before I'm finished with you."

"Cruc-" Zabini shouted, but Lucius had already uttered the same curse. There Zabini lay, writhing on the floor, his breath coming in short pants.

"NO!" Draco shouted. He kicked behind him and his foot collided with his captor who stumbled backward. Running forward, Draco collided with his father, pushing him into the ground.

"Get off of me!" Lucius yelled, but Draco had already raised himself to his feet and was halfway to Zabini. Feet away from him, he heard the sound of his father uttering a spell as he shot to his feet.

"Avada Kedavra!"

Draco ducked instinctively and jumped out of the way. Not a second later, he looked back at the spot the curse had landed.

And there lay Zabini, still disguised as Draco, his face a cold, gray color, his lips as blue as Lucius' heart. Turning his head, Draco stared into the eyes of his father and found him staring at the boy he had thought to be his son.

Hatred had laced itself into his face, but so had astonishment and, was it a touch of grief? His father's eyes shot to find the real Draco's and glared threateningly. "Take him to the shack," he said, his voice still as cold as the air surrounding him. "I'll deal with my son."

Words began to soundlessly make their way up Draco's throat, and just as they began to pass by his lips, he felt someone knock him in the head with a massive force, and he knew no more.

A tear slid down Draco's face as his eyes shot open. The memory continued to course its way through Draco's very essence. He remembered that night. He remembered the hatred he had felt as if it were yesterday. He had awoken the next morning in his own body and had been locked in this room… this illusion. The memory filtered its way through his heart for the first time since the memory charm had been placed upon him.

So this is what it felt like… this must be death. For if death had not found its way to Draco at last, he didn't think it ever would.

Hermione simply stared at Harry through the transparent glass separating the house from the outside, bitter cold. Her heart clenched as she watched him, standing there, her eyes locked in the same spot, unable to move. From the rigid position her back had adapted, she could have easily passed under the full body bind.

One phrase spiraled through her mind; one, unbroken, unending, unforgivable phrase; _"I'm leaving… I'm leaving… I'm leaving… I'm leaving. America, America… America… America…"_

And then, suddenly, her body jerked: her head flying to the left, her knees crashing down to the floor below. Her hands, as if mechanically forced to do so, shot up to cup her face as she sobbed, forced, confused sobs. A scene had forced its way through her brain, overtaking common sense and banishing reasonable thought; Draco was leaving her.

"_Draco_,_ no. Don't. Don't go. Draco, please. Please! Don't go! No!" _she sobbed, her hands covered in the same tears she had cried three years before; and then she stopped.

Her head jerking up from its defeated position and pulled her body erect. She looked, questioningly, out the window. And then, slowly, she smiled. The tears streaming down her face had stopped and she stood there, her hand now poised in the air, waving at someone who apparently stood on the other side of the glass.

She jerked again, her mind shutting down, not functioning. For a moment, she stood there, her body rigid, the same words flooding her brain once again. "_I'm leaving, Hermione. America."_

Her body twitched, shaking violently under the invisible strain coursing through her veins. Her knees crashed down the floor and she began sobbing. "DRACO!" she called through sadistic tears. "No… don't leave me." She convulsed again, her body jumping into the air this time.

And she screamed: a blood curdling, high-pitched, agonizing scream. Her brain had ceased functioning with reasonable thought. An invisible guide seemed to be pushing her, _forcing_ her, to cry, uncontrollably, while another wished, no _demanded_, she wave joyously out the window to "Harry" who wanted to say good bye to her. She couldn't do both; she was incapable of handling two completely different emotions at one time.

Her arm twitched, waving convulsively out the window while she crouched, half standing, half kneeling; her eyes downcast, sobbing hysterical sobs. The scream continued to shatter the remaining wards around her as it emanated from her lips. Distantly she heard the sound of a door slam open behind her, a person sprint across the room. She dimly felt a hand rest upon her shoulder and tried unsuccessfully to connect the gibberish flooding from the person's mouth.

A moment later, she felt the hand flee her shoulder and heard footsteps sprint across the room to fetch… the phone? The door? Where were they going? But conscious thought stayed with her for only a moment more before darkness overtook her, and she knew no more.

For a moment, two sets of eyes merely stared at each other, one gray and one blue. Harry's mouth had fallen open in, what Draco could only assume, complete surprise. Draco, on the other hand, felt both relief and annoyance flood through his veins.

"Oh, wonderful. Saint Potter here to save the day. Should I bow now after you saved the wizarding world, or would curtsying suffice? I'm afraid that, in my current position, both will be a little difficult but I'll do my best," Draco drawled in both annoyance and sarcasm. He couldn't remember having this much fun in years; it was pathetic, really, how much amusement he found in slamming _The Chosen One._

"You… you're," Harry stuttered, but he didn't seem capable of finishing his sentence.

"Draco Malfoy," Draco finished for him. "Yes, I'm glad your eyes work well enough to tell me apart from the Weasleys. If you'd started calling me Arthur, I might go mad."

"You're alive," Harry whispered. "Merlin's beard." He took a step back, his steps running him directly into Tonks who was looking at him quizzically.

"Harry," she said, clearly confused. "What's going on, is there someone inside?"

Harry shook his head; what do you tell someone who's cousin's supposed to be dead? "I… yes. There's-Draco he's… trapped," he finished, rather vaguely.

Tonks stared at him. "Harry are you feeling all right? Draco, he's - well, dead." She continued to look at him strangely, until, finally, she began moving towards the split in the wall.

A gasp confirmed what he knew to be true.

"You know, while I'm sure there's a particularly wonderful reason for you two to be gawking at me, I am getting a bit tired of hanging here. Amusement only holds my attention for so long," Draco offered in hopes of hurrying up this engagement. "Especially if you've brought along the Order; my father will, no doubt, be here any moment and I was so hoping to surprise him with my absence."

Harry's head was reeling. Draco was alive and Harry had married Hermione. Draco's last words to Hermione had been, "I will come back; I promise," and he had shattered that illusion. Worst of all, though, Hermione was still in love with a man currently impersonating dried salami.

He had no choice; he couldn't save him.

_What!_ Harry heard his conscience scream in his ear. _You, Harry Potter, are going to let someone die when you could have saved him?_

_I don't have a choice; he'll steal Hermione back,_ Harry countered.

_So what? She'll be happy again._

_But she won't be with me._

_You can still be friends; it worked at Hogwarts._

_I'd be handing her over to the enemy._

_So what?_

_So – I'm doing what's best for her. She would never be happy with someone so immersed in the Dark Arts._

_The truth is, you don't really know what she would or wouldn't like._

"…_PTSD, the muggles call it; Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."_ A muffled voice forced its way through Hermione's brain as she laid there, her eyelids closed; sleep slowly withdrawing from her mind._ Muggles don't really understand the chemical imbalance it causes in a person_," the voice continued in front of her_. "All they know are the obvious symptoms… as if that's hard to figure out. They use… oh what's the word again? Ah, yes,"_ the voice continued without breaking stride. _"Therroppy Sessions."_

"_You mean Therapy sessions?" _a second voice asked. This voice sounded familiar.

"_Yes, that's it. Well, they seem to think it helps a little; it really depends on the case, though, doesn't it?" _the voice recovered.

Hermione blinked. Opening her eyelids, heavy from fatigue, she gazed around the room. It looked as though she had been placed in an alternative universe; every bit of the room seemed to be bathed in white; the door, the walls, the sheets, the bed, the people standing in the corner; everything seemed to be whitewashed.

"Ah!" came the voice of a woman from the corner of the room. "She's awake." Bustling over to Hermione, the woman bent over and pinched her hard on the arm. Sucking in her breath, Hermione glared at the woman from behind her eyelashes. "Yep," the woman said. "Awake and alert." Hurrying to the head of the bed, she muttered something, which sounded suspiciously like, "Muggle remedies… I ask you!"

"Sorry?" Hermione asked.

The woman ignored her. Another woman in the far corner of the room looked at Hermione, relief evident in her eyes. "Mum?" Hermione croaked.

"Oh, Hermione," the woman breathed, hurrying over to her side. "We've been so worried about you. You're father's out pacing in the hallways. We argued with the matron her for a good fifteen minutes before she'd let us in the building."

"Matron?" the woman at the end of the bed questioned. "What, you mean those crazy nurses in muggle hospitals?" She scoffed. "We are Healers, dear; not matron, nurses, or doctors."

"Where am I?" Hermione asked groggily. She made to sit up but quickly felt the strong hand of the "healer" push her back into the pillows.

"You need rest, dear," the woman said sternly. "Here," and without a moments notice, she quickly poured a thick, red potion down Hermione's throat. Coughing and spluttering, Hermione swallowed the horrid substance. "Umph," replied the healer, and she hurried to the end of the bed once more. "I'll allow you to catch up with your family while I help a patient in another ward. I'll be back in a minute." And, in an instant, she was gone.

"What happened?" Hermione asked. "I… I don't remember anything. Am I… am I in Saint Mungo's?"

Hermione's mother nodded. "Ms. Farmcook called us soon after finding you in the house; screaming. She said you looked to be having a panic attack and had no idea what to do." She sighed, pulled the glasses off the end of her nose, and rubbed them on her thin jacket. "We were so scared," she whispered, rubbing her eyes with her hands. "We had no idea what was happening to you. We called Ron's family and they helped bring you here and, well… here we are."

Silence split the room in an eerie stillness.

"Where's Harry?" her mother asked. "Why wasn't he with you?"

"He's…" Hermione swallowed. "He… he's in…" she swallowed hard, determined not to break down, but finding it hard to control her emotions. Sitting up in bed, she brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly as she whispered, "He's in America," under her breath.

Mrs. Granger looked at her strangely. "Whatever for?" Hermione didn't answer. "Work, I assume?" A nod.

Hermione felt Mrs. Granger relieve herself of the bed as the pressure from her left side suddenly repressed. "I'll fetch your father, dear. He's worried out of his mind."

And she was gone.

Hermione blinked back the tears threatening to overtake her as she sat there, curled in a fetal position. What had happened to her? She could remember bits of the past 24 hours, but only vaguely. Closing her eyes, she let her mind soar with illusions of darkness overpowering her mentality.

_The outline of a man stepped behind her eyelids, walking toward a door at the end of a corridor. Turning around, she realized who it was. _Draco'_, she breathed, her heart clenching violently in her chest. But then it changed. Suddenly, she watched as he hung in the air; his feet dangling just above the floor, his hands tied harshly to the ceiling. A cruel, menacing, maniacal laughter pounded in her ears as she watched him, thrashing and kicking about, his head thrown back in pain. And then, another man entered. A familiar man… Harry. '_You can't win_,' Harry whispered to Draco. '_You know you deserve this_.' And, as suddenly as he had come, he left and the only words left in Hermione's brain were the words of her devastation… the words that would forever haunt her…_

"_I'm leaving you…"_

**A/N: coughs uncertainly Um, well what'da think? Just so you all know, PTSD is a real syndrome and causes a reaction of the _sort _to occur. Hermione's reaction was a bit extreme, but it makes for better description. The disease is awful and I'm not trying to offend anyone. The way I explained her reaction to myself was by saying, "Well, Hermione does have common sense, so don't you think some part of her would be trying to fight off the reaction?" I dunno and I'm really sorry to anyone who was offended by her reaction. So, um, leave a review?**

**Yours,**

**PhoenixCGandAC**


	6. The Meaning of Pain

_Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world don't I own. squeals Ooh, that was fun! I'm now impersonating Yoda… and Yoda I own not either. laughs to herself stupidly Okay, yeah, I'll let you read the chapter now._

**A/N: Please don't murder me for any grammatical errors in this chapter. I wanted to get the chapter out to you and didn't have time to get someone to read it over. So enjoy!**

**Chapter 6:** The Meaning of Pain

Harry backed away and began walking away from the room holding prisoner his worst nightmare.

"Harry what…" Tonks began, but was cut off by Harry, who stormed off, trying to put as much distance between himself and Malfoy as he could.

"We're leaving. There's obviously been a mistake," he growled.

Tonks glared at him as she placed her hands on her hips. "Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have a bit of a harder time leaving him here then you seem to be having."

"Tonks, you just… I… no! We're leaving now!" He couldn't think. Visions of Hermione and Draco, kissing, flashed through his brain, visions of her leaving him. No, he couldn't risk it. He was doing the right thing… he was sure of it.

"Harry, think for a second," Tonks pleaded, walking away from the wall. "There's a man hanging from the ceiling in there… dying!" she added, for dramatic effect. "Are you, Harry Potter, the savior of the wizarding world, really going to let him die here?"

"So now I'm type cast, right? Now, because I've defeated Voldemort, I'm automatically the self-made hero?" Harry questioned.

"Well yes, actually," Tonks responded.

"No," Harry answered. "It's a… a trap or something. He… I mean, come on. We know for sure that Dark Magic surrounds this building, why can't it be a set up? I bet you anything Lucius set it up and you're playing right into his hand." But for all he said, Harry believed none of it.

"Harry, come on. You're not thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking fine," he snapped. Shoving his hand in his pocket, he pulled out his golden galleon and tapped it with his wand. Writing a single word in the air with the tip of his wand, he tapped the coin again.

Tonks glared at him while trying to mask her astonishment.

"Potter!" A voice drifted through the crack in the wall. Harry turned and looked toward the cursed building. "I'm really not into groveling so don't make me, but I am on rather a tight schedule."

"I highly doubt that," Harry retorted. "From the looks of it, it'll be a while before you'll be able to do anything."

"Harry!" Tonks tried again. "Listen to him, Merlin's beard what's gotten into you!"

"Yeah Potter. Going to leave a poor soul like me hanging from the ceiling?" Draco asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Harry, what's going on?" Harry turned around to see the Sabine sisters running toward him, their coins in their hands. "The coins burned saying retreat, what happened?"

"There's… been a mistake," Harry answered. Guilt had begun leaking into his conscience.

Tonks stared angrily at him, but said nothing. Instead, she folded her arms and refused to look at any of them, especially not the building behind her.

"Well, well, well," Draco said, amused and afraid that his final hope would soon be leaving him. "Potter turning to the dark side. I'd never have suspected it."

Harry ignored him. Opening his mouth to offer a better explanation to Lyra and Amanda, who were looking extremely confused, he heard Draco yell through the wall, once again.

"So what have Hermione and Ron been up to? I mean, obviously a gap has either already punctured your relationship with them or will soon because I doubt either of them would stoop this low."

Harry's blood was boiling. "You know, for a man who doesn't like to grovel, you're certainly very good at it," he retorted. Four figures were running toward him from either side of the building. "Let's go, guys. We have no business left here."

Tonks glanced helplessly once more toward the building, but followed a second later.

"Potter!" Draco felt the heat rising in his cheeks. He couldn't believe he, of all people, was about to do this. "I have a week."

Harry stopped.

"I… I made a bet. I, Lucius and I, we… we performed the Unbreakable Vow."

Harry refused to look at the building.

"I bet him I could escape in a month. I have less then a week left. If I don't get out in that time, I'm going to fall into a fairytale sleep. Fill in the blanks." Ice coiled around his words as they pummeled from his chapped lips.

Tonks looked at Harry, pleading silently with him.

"You should know better then to use that spell, Draco. It almost ruined you once before, it looks like this time you're luck's run out."

And he was gone. All eight of them disapperated in a flash, taking with them all hope Draco had managed to acquire.

* * *

Firewhisky burned hot and heavy as it smoldered down his throat. Harry looked up, his eyes slightly unfocused as they sought out the bartender.

"Another," he whispered. The man looked at him strangely, but nodded and busied himself with refilling the cup.

"Harry," Tonks scolded, bursting into the room. "This is madness. What are you DOING?"

"What doss it look like?" Harry asked, his words slurring as they tumbled out of his mouth. He raised his glass and inclined his head to her before dumping the shot down his throat once more. Gasping for air, he asked, "Wat one?"

"No, thank you, I'd prefer to hold my dignity." She sighed, her normally bubblegum pink hair now an eerily bright blond… Malfoy's blonde. "Why are you doing this, Harry?" she asked, taking the seat next to him and shoving the shot glass away from Harry's reach. "You're being ridiculous."

Harry sighed. Hermione's face invaded his mind, engulfing his thoughts. No longer did a warm smile accompany her welcoming face. For so long had he gazed and worried about her gaunt features, it now remained the only picture of her he seemed to possess in his mind. "I left him there," he articulated, miraculously, in perfect dialect.

"Yes, you did," Tonks, admitted, crossing her arms. "Not having second thoughts, now, are you?"

Harry glanced at her, his eyes slowly coming back into focus. "He… I had to."

"And why's that?" Tonks asked. "There's obviously more to this then sheer rebellion of your normal ways."

"He loves her. He still does… I can tell. And… and she still loves him," Harry tried, his thoughts spinning out of control in a jumbled mess.

"What?" Tonks asked, looking quizzically at Harry. "You mean, Draco? What are you talking about?"

Harry looked into Tonk's eyes. "Draco. And… and Hermione." He groaned, his head pounding against his skull. Reaching over Tonks for the glass, he signaled to the bartender once more.

Tonks looked at him incredulously. "So, let me get this straight. Draco and Hermione were… were a thing?" Harry nodded. "As in, together?" Harry glared at her, but nodded again. "As in, they liked being together and Hermione would rather have been with him then you… right?"

"Does this have a point? This lecture?" Harry croaked, downing the fresh liquid.

"No, just clarifying the impossible," Tonks responded. She paused, refusing to look at him. "So, if she loves him, why did she marry you?"

Harry put his face in his hands, groaning. "Because I asked her too."

"Harry," Tonks sighed, as if explaining something to a small child. "Marriage is a very important ordeal. You don't just say 'yes' because you feel like it. You have to mean it and have a reason for wanting to spend the rest of your life with that person."

"You don't get it. I'm just a default. She doesn't love me like she loved him. Look at her now! She refuses to live without him. I don't know who I'm trying to kid." He downed yet another shot of burning liquid. "I musht be mental," he muttered.

"Well, it would certainly seem that way," Tonks continued. "I… oh Harry, you always were abnormal." She sighed, turning away from him. "I can think of about three possibilities for why you're thinking this way; A) because you've had way to much to drink…" she stopped and looked at him. "Scratch that, that's a definite. You are definitely drunk." She continued. "B) You continue to harbor, after two years of marriage, insane amounts of jealousy which are usually discarded in primary school." Harry grunted at this, but allowed her to continue. "C) Your brain is malfunctioning and you are under the delusion that Hermione and Draco could be having an affair when 1. They hate each other and 2. Hermione's the biggest goodie-two shoes I've ever met." At this point, Harry opened his mouth to say something in response, but Tonks cut him off with a ringing, "And D)," he shut up; "You hate Draco and simply wish to kill him at whatever cost; even if it means making up huge lies to do so."

Harry simply stared at her in amazement, his eyes bloodshot from the firewhisky. "I'm going to say all of the above apply," Tonks concluded a moment later. Signaling to the bartender, she called, "pass me a shot of firewhisky," and downed the glass in a single gulp.

Harry, startled, watched her in amazement. Unfortunatley, this amazement did not last for longer then a second for a moment later, the door behind them banged open and in rushed Ronald Weasley; disheveled, exhausted, and scared beyond belief.

"Harry," he choked through his remaining breath. "It's… it's Hermione." Harry ceased all actions at once and swiveled around to look at him.

"I think… I think she's going crazy."

* * *

Draco refused to open his eyes. Ever since he had last heard Potter's voice, he had been keeping his eyes firmly shut, refusing to look out at the inevitable.

_I am not imprisoned_, he thought desperately. _I have been rescued by the Golden Boy and his miserable cronies… I have NOT been left to die at the mercy of my father. The world has, under no circumstances, fallen off its normal orbit and caused the savior of our wizarding world to refuse to help someone._ He paused a moment, straining to hear voices… noises… screams? Pleas for help? Something? _I can't hear anything because I've been rescued and placed in a highly protected ward, safe and sound, in London. When I open my eyes, I will NOT be hanging from a ceiling; I will awaken to find presents surrounding me… well, Hermione anyway._

Silence echoed across the room at large.

_Okay; one… _he squinted his eyes shut as tight as they would go; _two…_ he clenched his hands together, ignoring the fact that, despite his reluctance to believe he was not hanging from a ceiling, felt as though they had long been deprived of blood for this very reason; _three… _he opened his eyes.

"Damn you bloody Gryffindors!" Draco scowled under his breath, his face contorted in rage. "No matter how hard I try, I will NEVER understand you. One day you're the hero's of the earth, the next you have more Slytherin characteristics then me." Defeat beginning to make an appearance, Draco hung his head, clenching his eyes shut once more.

_At least she's got friends_, he thought wryly. _Potter and the Weasel will take care of her. She's probably already forgotten me. Hell, she's probably already married and moving on._

But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself this was true, he couldn't bring himself to admit the latter. _She… she couldn't just forget me, could she? Was I really that spontaneous? What am I saying, I'm supposed to be convincing myself I'm an unimportant aspect in her life! No one's going to miss me once I'm gone…_

_Damn! I'm turning into a bloody Hufflepuff!_

0000

As the week passed, the clock in Draco's mind seemed to speed up, just as it does whenever something foreboding is about to happen. The threads of hope he had begun to acquire since the binding spell had snapped the minute Potter had stepped into the equation. Depression lapped into his life, consuming his being. The pain he felt in his once perfectly toned body meant nothing to him; nothing mattered anymore. There was simply no way he could escape from the building without outside help, and that help had fled upon first glance.

The simple fact of the matter remained that he had no one. No one cared about what happened to Draco Malfoy, the son of a Death Eater… not even the Death Eater in question.

Accepting this fate, his life seemed to stretch endlessly before him, all paths leading to the last day. For even though the binding of the curse wouldn't kill him, it would, as the words so carefully stated, place him in a sleep so sound, none but the one person truly able to peer into his "dead" soul would truly see him as he remained; alive.

And, as Draco reminded himself, what were his chances that that one person would ever find his corpse, care enough to truly look at it, and then kiss it to reawaken the soul within? Slim to none.

The fatal day finally arrived and with it, Lucius' presence in the room, one last time.

As the door closed with a thud behind him, Lucius' voice rang through the room. "I assume I need not explain why I'm here," he drawled. "Assuming you've figured out what day it is, you will know I am here to watch you as you draw you remaining breaths." He smiled; that cold, dreadful smile rarely seen accompanying his lips, but fitting his personality to the core.

And, second's later, Draco felt a sort of unease begin to spread throughout his body. The feeling started in his toes and stemmed from there… the feeling that his limbs were - there was no other way to put it – dying. Looking down at his hands, he watched as they turned an icy blue color, their flesh graying in defeat… echoing his heart within.

But, whatever illusions he had fallen into from this easy, painless way to "die" were quickly squelched by what happened next. Pain beyond belief shot through his body as he hung there, his hands tied to the ceiling, trembling in pain, his legs swinging back and forth below as wave after wave of electric shock coursed through his body. His head shook vehemently as sweat trickled down into his pale eyebrows. His heart felt like it had burst in two, shattering pieces of its torn remains everywhere; puncturing his lungs, his eyes, his liver… everything seemed to collapse from one picture forcing its way through his mind as he tried to remove his brain from the pain within…

Hermione.

Never had a plan backfire so contemptuously before him. Her face, sad and desolate, hung before him; her sad eyes alight with fire as she watched him suffering. Her voice echoed in his head as he hung there, trying to swallow a pain equivalent only to Potter's Sectumsempra curse back in his sixth year. _You deserve this, you know. No one loves you and you're death will finally bring peace to my heart. _

Rational thought refused to lodge in his brain as insane possibilities flashed before him. Biting off his head seemed a good idea, cutting off his arm seemed perfectly reasonable… anything to make this unbearable pain stop. His mouth, which had remained firmly clamped shut through the process, opened into a scream… the most disturbing scream he had ever bellowed in his entire life. The sound vibrated off the steel walls as he shook violently in the air, his body swinging back and forth. The blood that had trickled down his wrists before from the manacles now flowed down in a stream of color. Drops of blood had begun to squeeze themselves from the corners of his lips, staining his teeth a dark red as they flowed hungrily down his lips and over his chin. His eyes flew open in pain, their pupils fully dilated as a single drop of black blood trickled from the corner of his eyes, the white interior of his eyes stained red in the aftermath of the curse.

Sound began to fade as he hung there, desperate for an end to come… to relieve him of this anguish threatening to overtake him. Sight became obsolete. Touch… a being of yesteryear. The smells of his coppery blood as more drops spilled from his nose began to fade, and with it, the last voice he would hear… the voice he least wanted to hear as a laugh mingled dangerously with the words pulsing deep within.

"I told you, Draco… I told you you would pay."

* * *

Hermione screamed. Her voice burst through the curtains draped around her bed, burst through the walls enclosing her sanity, burst through his heart… his pain-ridden heart full of remorse, hatred, love, and sorrow.

Harry had, of course, finally managed to find his way back to Hermione's side.

The door to her room burst open with a bang as he hurtled through it, his feet pounding against the wood floor, his breath coming in short spurts.

"HERMIONE!" he screamed, his feet carrying him swiftly forward until his kneecaps collided hard with the frame of her bed. He swore as he doubled over slightly, both from the sight before him and the pain from his kneecaps. Backing away from the edge of the bed and leaning forward instead, his frame towered over her sleeping form. The blankets once lying peacefully across her fragile body had long since twisted themselves between her legs, sweat mingling with the sheets as they clung to her delicate form. Her hair had splayed out along the pillow, each strand soaked with sweat, her brow knitted in pain, pain at what she saw beneath those closed eyes.

"Hermione," he cried, softly this time, shaking her shoulders slightly. "It's a dream… it's just a dream. Come on now, love, wake up." She shook her head, her mind clearly buzzing as image after image erupted before her face.

"No," she muttered, "No you can't… don't!" Her voice rose in panic, cracking as she gave a strangled cry of fear.

"I need a healer in here!" Harry cried. "PLEASE!" Footsteps pounded along the corridors as Harry continued to breath nonsense in her ear, trying desperately to awaken her from her dream. "It's just a dream, it's okay. Come-on love, don't do this to me."

The door burst open once more as a Healer hurried into the room. "What happened?" she cried.

"I… I don't know," Harry responded, a look of pain etched across his face. "I was coming by to see her… I only just arrived. She… she was like this when I found her."

"Take it easy," the Healer said. "Just sit down, that's it," she soothed, Accioing a chair beneath his legs. "It's most likely just nightmares… that can happen after suffering from this type of PTSD… oh Merlin" she sighed. Reaching over her shoulder, a potion suddenly appeared in her hand and she quickly poured its contents down Hermione's throat.

"NOO!" she screamed. And, gasping for air, she awoke; body shaking, forehead ice-cold, and eyes alight with fire.

0000

_A man stood before her, his head thrown back in a cruel, nauseating laugh, his sleek blond hair billowing out behind him. Stopping abruptly, he yelled, "Crucio!" and a body before him roared in agony._

"_NO!" Hermione screamed. She ran toward him, her hands desperate to sooth his aching body, to calm his wound up nerves. But when she reached him, all she could touch was air. "No…" she whispered. "No, Draco… please!" She looked up at the man before her, his wand still pointed at the man writhing painfully across the ground. "Not like this."_

_The spell lifted and Draco lay, panting, on the ground before her. "You are going to die," hissed the cloaked figure, his hair still billowing from around his masked face. "You are going to die for the sins you have committed." He smirked, his face twisting evilly, the mask born across his face shadowing only his eyes from view. "Any last words, my precious flesh and blood?"_

_Draco spat, a mouthful of blood splattering across the ground and the hem of the other man's robes. "Go to hell," he croaked._

_The man drew back, his robes twisting away from Draco in an attempt to save them from further torment. "Oh I've no doubt you will," the voice hissed._

_The scene before Hermione seemed to slow, every movement accentuated as she looked on in horror. As the man raised his wand, Draco curled backward and the scene bathed itself in darkness illuminating, as if on a stage, the two bodies in view…_

_Draco, and Lucius._

"_NO!" Hermione shouted once more. "No you can't… don't!" Tears leaked from her muddy brown eyes as they spilled onto the shaking form crouched at her feet. Looking up at the man before her, she watched as he raised his wand, still pointed directly at Draco's heart and uttered the only two words, which could end his suffering, and enrich hers in the cruelest way possible._

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!" he bellowed. A jet of green light shot out of his wand and sailed straight through Hermione's body as she flew across his trembling form, trying desperately to block the spell, but to no avail. Draco's body went rigid for but a moment, and then fell back, plunging into the cold, death eaten ground._

"_NOOO!" She screamed, tears flowing rapidly down her face as she watched the love of her life die beneath her, his forehead still knit in pain, as it would stay forever more._

"NO!" Hermione screamed, her voice echoing once more around the room. A face rose into sharp relief before her as her mind escaped the terrible dream plaguing her thoughts.

"Hermione," a voice whispered after a minute, her breathing now the only sound echoing around the room. She turned her head to gaze at Harry, sitting tensely upon the edge of his seat. His eyes, she realized, were alight with tears, though none seemed able to spill from his eyes.

"He's…" she swallowed hard, her mind still reeling from her dream. "He's really dead."

Never before had she been able to conjure, or allow herself to conjure, a picture of what may have happened the night the love of her life had been murdered.

Harry nodded once at her and felt his heart break as he told her this outright lie.

No, he was not dead… but he would be soon. And suddenly he realized, with a jolt of agony, that he wished it were not true. Seeing the look of sheer terror erupt upon her face as blinding realization paled before her, he knew he needed to do something…

And he needed to fast.

* * *

**A/N: Whatcha think? Review and tell me your thoughts! I LOVE killing Draco, as you may have gathered from my story thus far. It's just so soothing, for some reason, and so much fun to write. evil grin**

**Much love for my wonderful readers and especially those who review,**

**PhoenixTearsCG**


	7. Freeing the Dead

_Disclaimer: None of it belongs to me, I'm simply pretending there is some conceivable way I could ever write half as well as JK Rowling and using her world in the process._

**Chapter 7:**Freeing the Dead

It was her screams, which brought him into her room, once again. He had been pacing by her door for hours before he heard, once again, the blood curdling scream that brought him running tumultuously into her room, his hair even wilder then usual, the door smashing against the wall, so hard had he slammed it open in his haste.

Had the door been of muggle decent, a crack would no doubt live as part of it forevermore.

However, there are advantages to being a wizard and shatterproof doors in hospital rooms just happens to be one of those precautions taken. Therefore, Harry neither knew nor cared of these factors as he raced to his wife's bedside, drinking in her appearance.

She lay on the bed, thrashing; her bed sheets tangled once again around her. Her entire body shook vehemently as she lay there gasping, tears leaking out of her eyes. And suddenly, no more than an instant later, her eyes flew open and she screamed, once again.

"_NOO!"_ she cried! Tears gushed from the corners of her eyes and splattered like rain down her front, her hair stood wildly on end, as if an electric plug had sent shockwaves through her mane of brown tangles. She shot up, her body rigid in fear, in confusion as she took in her surroundings.

Harry was at her side in an instant. "What, Hermione," he questioned, not sure what he meant to ask her. "Hermione, it's okay, I'm here," he soothed. Relaxing against his firm chest, she allowed her body to melt into his arms, her sobs erratic now as they drenched Harry's shirt.

Two words could be heard emanating from her muffled voice as she whispered them over and over again: "No… Draco, no… no, Draco, no…" the words strangely hushed by the sobs coercing their way out of her throat; as if being pulled by a string… a never ending string. And then, another word floated from her lips in a soft, helpless voice: "help," and she spoke no more.

0000

"I NEED A HEALER IN HERE, NOW!" Harry screamed. Hermione's head lay draped across his lap, her neck twisted at a rather odd angle as she lay there, her breathing coming in short spurts, her eyelids twitching madly.

And then, he heard her mutter, while still seemingly asleep, "Draco… help."

Tears were hammering against Harry's cornea, desperate to get out. But Harry kept them at bay. Screwing up his face in pain induced from her present state, he choked out, "Okay. Okay, Hermione, if that's what you truly want, I'll get him for you." And he stood up.

A healer burst into the room, spotted Hermione's state of disarray, and asked, aghast, "What happened?"

"I… she screamed and I… I… I have to go," he muttered, backing out of the room.

"Hold on there, young man," the witch commanded, waving her wand in the air as the door slammed shut in Harry's face. "No one goes anywhere until you tell me EXACTLY what she said."

Harry groaned, pushing his glasses up off the bridge of his nose as he rubbed his eyes. "I, she said… well, she kept whispering actually, 'No, Draco, no…' over and over again. This, well, she said this after screaming. She… I think she might have been dreaming again, I don' t know. Ever since her attack, she's been having these nightmares more often."

The healer looked at him, puzzled for a second. "Who, or what, is Draco?"

Harry looked up at her and stared her directly in the eye as he whispered, "The man she loves," before turning around, grasping the handle of the door, and yanking it open. Pausing briefly at the door, he said, "Help her in any way you can. I'm… going to find him."

And with that, he left the room, leaving a very confused healer in his wake.

0000

For the second time in his life, Harry found his feet pummeling into the soft ground surrounding the building he knew to contain Draco. Walking toward it, his wand held aloft, he started toward the threatening stockade before him. Pacing off the distance to the cracked corner, Harry stopped, hearing a voice in the distance.

Well, a howl actually.

Confused, Harry continued onward, his pace quickening as he neared his destination. He could hear the scream clearer as he drew nearer, the voice dripping in agony, fear, and pain. Jogging the final distance, Harry reached the corner of the wall and, as he reached out for a stick on the ground, heard a last, guttural moan before all sounds ceased.

Silence ensued. Not a sound could be heard, not a blue jay cawing in breadth, not a voice booming in the distance. Nothing.

And then he heard a cackle. Harry listened, his ear pressed firmly to the wall as a laugh echoed around the still chamber. But, the laugh did not sound as if it belonged to the youngest Malfoy, no. This laugh sounded - there was no other way to put it – evil. And while Harry loathed Draco with more contempt then most people would give him credit for possessing, his heart told him that this laugh could not belong to someone his wife loved more then her own life.

Therefore, the only option left was that someone – Lucius? – had found their way into the chamber Harry knew held Draco prisoner. Footsteps echoed around the room following a loud thump crashing to the floor. Taking a deep breath, Harry picked up a stick off the ground and, shoving it between the gap, pushed as hard as humanely possible to the side, pulling the wall further and further away from its counterpart.

Creaks and groans drugged the silence as he moved the wall further and further, hoping against hope that Lucius had already left the room and could not hear this new reverberation taking place. Sweat dripped lazily into Harry's brow as he worked, clouding his vision as it dripped into his eyes until, finally, the wall had been moved far enough to create a doorway into the chamber.

Harry ran. No thought entered his mind other then pure animalistic instinct. Someone was in trouble in there, his wife loved that person, and he needed to become The Chosen One once again. So he ran through the gap, smacking his shoulder into the wall leaving a thick gash in its wake, until he reached the cause of the thump he had previously heard.

Draco's body was lying on the ground, unmoving.

The bonds previously accompanying his wrists still clung to the corpse beneath his feet, but only half of the chain remained attached to his wrist. The other half proved to be hanging from the ceiling with a simple glance upward. Kneeling to the ground, his hands shaking slightly at the sight before him, one thought echoed through his mind.

_Oh god, oh Merlin, oh Saints in Heaven… this is all my fault._

Draco's face was pressed haphazardly to the cold ground. His chest did not rise and fall with each breath he took, but rather sat there, drenched in something akin to sweat and blood, unmoving. His legs, still clad in black pants, twisted around one another as they stuck out at a rather odd angle, his feet twisted in directions only acrobats could dream of. Blood lay oozing from his lip, a puddle of murky blood pooled all over the floor beneath his head. The once perfect, silky blond hair lay dank and defeated, red streaks marring its once ideal elegance. Before Harry rested a broken man… a man all would believe to be dead.

And, for all intents and purposes, he was. He could not move, could not breath, could not talk and would never perform any of these actions again unless he was kissed by his one true love.

_Unless he's kissed by Hermione, _Harry thought savagely.

Harry allowed his hand to snake out and grasp one of Draco's pant legs before pulling it back and revealing the pale flesh beneath. Or, what should have been pale skin. After the months - possibly years - this man had spent within this room the skin beneath should have been as white as snow. But one look proved this assumption false.

It was much worse than that.

His entire leg looked to be tinged blue, black lines running up toward his pelvis. The skin once sleek and covered in fine blond hairs now lay shriveled and ugly. Harry pulled the black material over his leg once more, not sure of how much longer he'd be able to scrutinize this pitiful sight. Instead, he untangled Draco's legs and rolled him onto his back for a second before pulling him into a sitting position.

Draco's head lolled foreword, the eyes within open and rolling backward within his head. Grimacing, Harry pulled Draco onto his shoulder, one hand grasped over his legs, the other just above his waist, and heaved them both up so that Harry stood, his head refusing to be anywhere near the putrid body, his legs shaking with grief and strain.

_Okay_, Harry thought. _I've just got to get out of this building and to the edge of the forest. From there I can apperate home and use magic to carry him._

Reasonable thought had long fled Harry's mind, for if he'd been thinking clearly, he would have realized that magic could indeed be performed where he stood; it was the only explanation for Draco's present state. Perhaps he would have been able to execute his plan had he used magic instead of force to levitate Draco's body from the malicious room in which he stood captive. But, being in the state of mind he was, he didn't and therefore found a hindrance to his plans waiting behind him.

Really, he was lucky he had managed to find no opposing forces before that point.

Just as Harry reached the opening, a dull clapping noise began to echo around the room. Harry stopped, refusing to turn around. He waited for the voice to accompany and was rewarded immediately.

"Bravo, bravo indeed, Potter. Once again, the "Chosen One" is out to save them all. But," the voice faltered, "why save him? He's done nothing but beseech you from the day you met him in first year." The voice sneered after pausing a moment more as it put particular emphasis on the next statement. "How is your wife?"

That was it. Someone knew much more than they should and had managed to put two and two together much faster than Harry would have liked. Spinning around, he turned to face Lucius Malfoy who stood, blocking the door, his wand pointed directly at Harry's chest.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to leave this room, not with my son, anyway. And most certainly not with the knowledge of his well-being… or lack thereof. Dear, dear… he is a pitiful sight isn't he?"

Harry's chest heaved as he listened to the man before him. "He's your son, you sick bastard. How could you do this to your own son," Harry spat.

"I'm still a little confused as to why you care," Lucius interrupted. "After all, he's been your arch nemesis for most of your life, stolen everything you've ever had and for what, this?" He laughed, a harsh ringing laughter.

"I think you know a little more then you're letting on, Malfoy," Harry responded coldly.

"Oh, alright. But how hard do you think it was, really, for me to put two and two together. How could I not know that my son had fallen in love with the very person I've trained him all his life to loath? He didn't exactly hide it, you see." Another smirk curled around his lips as he watched Harry weakening under his son's weight.

"Considering," Harry panted, "that the rest of the wizarding world is oblivious to their love, I think you may be mistaken."

Lucius smiled. "And I have you to thank for that, my boy. Had you not married the filthy mudblood the world would know of his love for her. Which, of course, could only serve to further destroy the Malfoy name."

"Don't," Harry whispered, staggering under the weight. "Don't you dare call her that."

"Hmm," Lucius pondered, pretending to take his words to heart. "That's rather odd, you see I thought I was the one with a wand, and you the one with a corpse over your shoulder." He laughed. "Funny you should be trying to give me instructions, Potter."

" 'Corpse' is a word used to describe a dead body, Malfoy. I do believe Draco fails to meet that requirement," Harry retorted.

Lucius smirked at him. "In denial, are we Potter? Seen too many dead bodies to believe another person could die at your mercy?"

"He told me about the vow, Malfoy. He told me he would 'die' in a week and it's been a week. He told me he would actually just be under a 'fairy-tale' sleep. He's not dead." But inside, Harry's intestines were knotting. He couldn't be dead, not now. Lucius didn't know how right he was. If Draco were dead it would be all his fault. His head felt strangely light and a bile taste mingled inside of his mouth with the sweat and saliva natural to its environment.

"Well," Lucius concluded. "Whether or not he is dead remains to be seen. The point is you will not be leaving this building with knowledge of his present condition. I could simply modify your memory, but memory charms can be broken." He smiled at Harry whose legs were currently quaking from standing still for this long. "I was going to kill the mudblood bitch first, but I guess you'll have to do for now. But don't worry," he smiled a cold, heartless smile. "They will all die. She'll be next, then Ron, then the rest of the Order and so on and so forth until the snow of London turns red with the blood of the city."

"What is it with you Dark Lords. You'd think they'd get a clue after their predecessor dies from the very thing they're attempting to do," Harry spat sarcastically.

"Enough. Why don't you put down that body and face me like a man before you die. You'll be with your filthy parents soon; it's what you want anyway, isn't it? If Hermione were to get her hands on Draco and find out the counter spell, you'd be cast aside." He watched as Harry's face faltered in hatred. "You know its true, Potter. Just forget about him, he's not worth your time, you should have left him here."

"So you admit that he's not dead. You admit there's a counter spell," Harry derived.

"Oh alright! There's a counter spell. Of course there is, how stupid do you think my son is, anyway?" Lucius spat.

"What is it?" Harry shouted, alarmingly acute for his present condition. "What's the spell Malfoy?"

"Come now Harry," Lucius smiled maliciously, not at all put off by his screaming fit. "Do you really think I'm going to tell you?"

Harry stared daggers at him and knelt down, keeping his eyes on Lucius the entire time. Carefully, he dropped Draco with a soft thud to the steel floor and stood once more. Staring at Lucius for a second more, he quickly whipped out his wand and trained it on Lucius' heart. Lucius' wand, for its part, had long since been waving around dramatically to emphasize his words and no longer directed itself at Harry's heart.

"Are you going to kill me, Harry?" Lucius asked doubtfully. "Come, then. Give it your best shot. I daresay you've more power than you did as a child, but let's see if you can't kill me on your first try. I'll even give you a free shot." He spread his arms wide, welcoming whatever form of pain Harry shot at him.

"Tell me what I need to know, Malfoy," Harry spat threateningly. Slowly, ever so slowly, he allowed his feet to move backward once more, toward the opening behind him.

"Do you really think that after all this time your threats hold any more merit then they did in your fifth year?" He barked a bark of cold laughter. "Save your breath."

Harry opened his mouth to retort but closed it quickly, turning and running instead toward the exit. If he could only duck behind the wall, he could levitate Draco's body through the hole to follow him…

"CRUCIO," Lucius cried. Harry was brought to his knees instantly. He screamed such was the pain overtaking his every limb. Needles lodged their way under his skin as they shoved themselves as deep as they could possibly go. Sweat dripped down his neck, drenching his robes. His legs shook as if still trying to run but finding it difficult in his present condition.

And then, it stopped.

Harry lay on the ground panting. His breath was ragged as he gulped lungful after lungful of the icy air surrounding him. Lucius stood above him, one heel pressed into his back, the other just to his side. "Running, now, are we?" He ground his heel into Harry's ribs. A loud crack echoed in Harry's ears as Lucius' foot snapped a rib in two. "You should have stayed, Potter. We were having such fun."

Harry panted, the pain blinding his vision. Black smog lined the corners of his eyes, threatening to overtake him as the pain throbbed in his head. Blood dripped savagely out of his nostril, overtaking his senses with the coppery smell. His back ached with a pain akin to none he could think of. Grated, his mind wasn't thinking very clearly in his present condition, but the pain seemed endless all the same. Hands shaking, he brought his wand arm as high as he could raise it behind him before yelling, "Expelliarmus!" in a loud, crisp voice.

The foot removed itself from his back, leaving Harry free to roll over onto his side before sitting up. His back ached as if someone were hammering it with a sledgehammer, over and over again. Lucius stood feet away, thrown of balance by the spell as he successfully ducked away from its target.

"Imper-" Lucius began, but was cut off by Harry's yell of, "Expelliarmus," once more. This time the spell hit Lucius squarely in the chest. The wand flew out of Lucius' arm, landing near Draco's feet. Harry dove sideways, trying to reach the wand before Lucius could reach it but was dampened by the throb in his back, the blood from his rib seeping through his clothing as it's sharp point stuck through Harry's skin.

Lucius, too, had dived for the wand and managed to reach it before Harry. "Stupify!" Harry yelled, the spell bouncing off the wall behind Lucius, once again throwing Lucius off balance.

"Avada Kedavra!" Lucius roared, the green light shooting inches away from Harry's arm.

Harry rolled sideways, one hand now trained on Draco, the other on Lucius' heart. "Sectumsempra!" he cried, but the spell feebly melted away into nothingness as Harry's eyes quivered from fatigue. The blackness behind his eyes had spread further now, prodding at his iris as if trying to bust down a door. A crack broke through the glass of Harry's glasses and a steady stream of blood dripped from his nose.

Shaking his head in a last desperate attempt to keep his head before dying at Lucius' mercy, he stared Lucius straight in the eyes before shouting, "Stupify!" with all remaining strength he possessed. Red sparks shot like a rocket from the tip of his wand a crashed directly into Lucius' chest.

A yell of surprise accompanied the heavy bang as Lucius fell backward; his eyes open in surprise, his body lax into the ground. Not particularly interested in the outcome of his nemesis, he shook his head once more, whispered "levicorpus", and crawled from the room through the hole.

The sight for any muggle or wizard would have been quite a nightmare to say the least. The body of a once handsome man, bloodied from abuse, crawling from a haunted looking building with another body just as broken floating directly behind him would be quite a site to behold. As it happened, both men managed to reach the edge of the forest, Harry would never remember how, and Harry apperated them both away.

The truly ironic part, though, was that Harry had just endured torture and anguishes for someone who would very soon become the person he hated more than any other.

* * *

**A/N: Well, I don't know about you but I am SO glad he's finally out of there! I mean, enough is really enough! By the way, I am so, so, so, so, SO extremely sorry for my lack of updates. My internet's been down and I've been deciding on AP classes for next year along with more schoolwork to get into those AP classes and, on top of that, two performances going at one time! Something had to give and I'm sorry it had to be this, but I've been trying to write lately and promise on quicker updates in the future. So, read and review and I'll update asap!**

**Yours,**

**PhoenixTearsCG**


	8. Three Years Wasted

**Chapter 8: **Three Years Wasted

Rain poured down over the cities of London. Sheets and sheets of pounding rain thundered across the streets. Light posts in the muggle communities crashed to the ground as cars swerved, trying desperately to see through their windshields. As for the wizarding world, apparition was not a desirable practice in such conditions. Most witches and wizards had locked their doors and to the less than desireable weather and continued on with their normal day life as usual.

As for the children, most wizarding children grew up loving the rain. They'd stand nearby the windows and watch as the heavy raindrops splattered across the ground. Therefore, it was no surprise that it was a child who first noticed Harry appear on a street corner of London, bleeding all over the sidewalk with an unfamiliar man at his side.

Her name was Poppy, and she noticed him immediately. A young girl of three, she had huge brown eyes and bouncy blonde locks, which ran down her neck in wavy sheets. As she watched him appear, her forehead crinkled in confusion. Looking closer showed her a clear gaze of his battered state. Blood seemed to seep from the very skin he wore. And by his side floated a pale blond man, just as battered as the famous Harry Potter.

"Mummy," the girl called. She turned around, her hand pressed to the window pain as her eyes found those of her mother, twirling about the kitchen singing along to her favorite song while sweeping her wand at the dishes.

She stopped, turned her head to face her daughter and asked, "What is it darling?"

Poppy turned away again. Her eyes sought the body just outside the window as if for confirmation. Sure enough, there he lay; panting and crawling on his hands and knees. "Who is that?"

Her mother stared at her confused. Drying her hands on the apron she wore tied around her waist, she walked to the window pane and looked out; it took her mere seconds to gasp in surprise and cover her face with her hands.

"Um, Poppy," she dictated, grasping her daughter's hand and leading her away from the window. "Why don't you go up to your room? You and your brother can play unicorns… or something."

"But mummy, I want to go see the Hawy," Poppy wined.

"The what, dear?" her mother asked, confused. Her mind was reeling. How her daughter had recognized that man in his current state was a mystery to her; he looked dreadful.

"The Hawy, mummy. The Hawy Pawter. He's outside the window." Her mother ignored her and continued ushering her to her room. "Is he sick, mummy?"

"Um, yes, dear. Yes, he needs some help from your mummy, so why don't you go upstairs and we can see what we can do for him."

"Mum." Another voice carried down the staircase. Looking up, the woman saw her oldest son, no more then six, gazing down at her, startled. "Mum, what's going on?"

"Hawy Pawter is ouside, Jackie! He's just ouside! Can we see him, mummy? Oh please?" Poppy pleaded.

"No," the woman retorted. "No you cannot. Jacob, I want you to flue your father. Tell him to come quickly, that I need his help."

"Is Harry Potter really outside our door, mum?" the boy called Jacob asked.

"I don't know, now do as I say." With a final shove, she left her children halfway up the staircase and hurried quickly to the door. "Accio," she commanded, carrying her jacket across the room with the commanded word, not stopping to watch as it flew onto her back.

The wind screamed at her as she opened the door. Closing it sharply, she gazed quickly at the window where her children's noses sat pressed flat to the windowsill, the tips white as snow through the foggy window. Ignoring them, she turned around and hurried as fast as she could to the man's side.

He was even worse in person. His hands and knees were rooted the ground, his head bowed low, coughing and spluttering with every breath. Another man, unrecognizable, lay sprawled on the ground, every once and a while floating into the air, and then floating back down.

"Oh, sweet Merlin," she choked, tears welling up in her eyes. Blood had dried to the famous Harry Potter's cheeks and lay caked in his hair. One hand had reached up to clench his chest, the other rooted to the ground, a pained expression plastered to his face.

Reaching his side at last, she bent low, the rain clouding her vision, and asked, remarkably, the first thing which came to mind; "Sir, um… are you… are you quite alright?"

And he blacked out.

The first thing Harry noticed upon awakening was the odd position in which he had been placed. His face had been smashed against a pillow and his stomach lay flat on the bed.

This was not how Harry normally slept.

Normally, Harry enjoyed resting on his back, his hand on his stomach, and the back of his head lying on the pillow beneath him. Therefore, lying upside down was slightly unsettling to say the least.

Nevertheless, as sleep crawled away from him and awareness overtook his senses once again, he allowed his eyes to survey the room to the best of their ability given their position. But, just as he opened his eyes, he heard a relieved sigh echo around the white room he had found himself and tried to look for the face accompanying the noise, but found this action impossible at the moment.

"Harry," came the familiar voice of none other than Ronald Weasley. "You're awake, thank Merlin. I thought I was going to have to find a healer and force them into giving you an awakening potion. You've been out cold, mate."

Harry relaxed against the pillow. Knowing he was in the presence of his best friend comforted him immensely. He did not want crowds of people awaiting him at the foot of his hospital bed. "Ron," he croaked. "Where's…" he faltered, his voice felt dry and raspy and it hurt to speak. "Hermione… need… see her."

He heard Ron's footsteps cover the remaining distance between where he sat and Harry's bed and felt Ron's hand grasp the edge of the bed as he knelt down beside him. "She's still in her own room, mate. She's getting better though," he added upon seeing the stricken look upon Harry's face. "The healer's say she'll be out in no time, they just want to make sure she doesn't have a relapse anytime soon. She's being given a potion three times a day just for precautions."

Harry blinked. The room looked so bright even from his forced position. "Am I alone?" he asked after a moment.

"Well," Ron faltered, seemingly unsure of how much to tell Harry given his current state. "Well I'm the only one visiting you if that's what you mean. But… no Harry there's someone else in the room."

Harry squinted at him and asked, unnecessarily, "Malfoy?" Ron nodded. Harry felt a rage of anger wash over him. He wasn't sure why exactly but he no longer wanted Malfoy here. What had he been thinking bringing him here in the first place? He had risked his life for the bastard and for what? Hermione to choose Malfoy over him? No way was he going to let that happen.

"Harry, where did you find him?" Ron asked. It seemed Ron just couldn't help himself any longer. The question he had wanted to ask upon first seeing the blond haired prat stumbled from his lips before he could stop it. "He's dead, I mean, there was a funeral… and everything. And Hermione…"

Harry groaned. Forgetting that he was probably in the position he laid for a very good reason, he pushed against the force just strong enough to nudge him away from the favored position while in sleep and rolled over onto his back. A stab of agony surged through his back as he pressed his skin against the bed, his eyes popping in pain. Immediately he felt Ron's hand grasp him and pull him back into the cramped position in which he had awoken.

"Easy there, mate. Sorry 'bout that, wasn't thinking," Ron offered apologetically.

"Get him out of here," Harry growled.

"Sorry?" Ron asked, taken aback.

"Hermione…. I need… Hermione… in here. Not going… see," Harry swallowed, trying to speak but finding it extremely difficult. "Don't want… Malfoy… Hermione…" but he could say no more.

"Okay, I get it mate, you don't want her to see him right now. I'll just get a healer in here and ask, well order actually, that he get his own room." Ron smiled. "There are advantages to being the best friend of one of the most famous wizards in the world." Ron backed away and Harry listened as the door opened and Ron called, "Oi! I need a Healer in here!"

Not two seconds later, he heard the patter of footsteps patter into the room followed by the sound of voices screaming with delight as Ron yelled, "GO away! NO! He doesn't need this!" and the door slamming shut.

"Right, I need this bloke to be moved to another room pronto. And Harry's awake and should probably be given some pain reduction or something. He's not keen on sleeping in that position and would like to sit up in bed. And he can't talk, so a potion for that would be nice too." The woman stood there, perplexed, as she looked from the man in the far corner of the room to Harry and back to Ron. "Well get a move on, then!" Ron snapped and the lady immediately muttered, "Levicorpus," and bustled out of the room with Draco Malfoy close on her heals.

Ron grinned and knelt beside Harry once more. "See? What did I tell you? There're advantages to being friends with you aren't there?" Harry rolled his eyes at Ron, but quickly sought out Ron's blue one's and tried to ask, for he could not speak, _How is Malfoy, really? I mean, I don't want to see him, but he looked like hell when I found him._

Ron seemed to have read Harry's mind and answered, "Malfoy looks awful. He's been beaten up pretty badly and doesn't appear to be alive. Harry, why did you bring him here? He's dead, Hermione doesn't need to see that."

Harry shook his head and sighed. What wouldn't he give to have a simple life? "I'll, uh, go get Hermione, shall I?" Harry nodded vigorously, his head pounding from the sudden motion.

As Ron stood up to leave, the Healer returened once again and forced an assortment of potions down Harry's throat. Well fine, Harry thought. He's here, but he's not in this room. Maybe I don't have to tell her he's here. Maybe I can leave him here and pass him as dead once again.

But one look from Hermione as she opened the door blew this thought from his head completely.

"Hermione," a voice whispered hesitantly. She recognized it immediately as Ron's melodic tune, floating hesitantly toward her.

"Ron," she sighed, turning around in her chair. A fire had been stocked in the grate and a bland leather chair had been placed for her sake in front of the flames. She had commenced gazing into the dancing embers for an hour, just watching as the sparks flew up and licked the stone encompassing it.

He walked forward. She listened as his footsteps slowly walked toward her, his light breathing drawing closer. "How are you," he asked, squatting in front of her and taking her hands in his. "Your hands are freezing."

She tried to smile. "They're warmer then they were," she commented.

He gazed up into her eyes, sadly. "Harry's back," he answered in response to the unanswered question lingering in the air. Although he had been back for some hours now, her room had been barred with silencing spells in order to keep any knowledge of his existence in the building from her. "He's laying on a bed just on the other side of this wall. He awoke about five minutes ago."

Hermione started. Harry was back, he had come back after telling her he was going to bring Draco to her. And, even though reasonable thought told her Draco was dead, she still allowed that little voice in her head to hope for the best. "Is… is he okay?" she asked, trying to restrain herself from asking about Draco.

Ron turned his head sideways slightly to look at her. "He's pretty beat up. No one's exactly sure what happened. He, uh, brought someone with him." He looked away from her and stood up before continuing. "Malfoy."

Hermione looked at him, astonished. Three years of distress threatened to overtake her. Three years of waiting for him to return. Three years of wishing he had never left. Three years of denial, of conviction that he would simply walk through the door any minute as if nothing had ever happened. Three years of pain; of a need to die just as he had. Three years married to Harry Potter, when one of the last things she had spoken to Draco about was marriage. Three years of living a lie. Three years of doing nothing to find him. Three years wallowing in misery.

Three years of death.

She could take it no longer. She stood up, not wanting to wait a moment longer and ran to Ron, hugging him. She didn't have a clue why she was doing so, but she was. Tears stung at her eyes, but she refused to allow them to fall before knowing everything. "Is he… is he alive?" she asked, whispering into his shoulder.

Ron backed away. "I… I don't know, Hermione."

She stopped, looking at him confused. "What do you mean, you don't know?" she asked uncertainly. "How can you not know something like that?"

"I just can't understand why Harry would have brought him here if he was dead, but…" he faltered. He did not want to tell her this. Harry should be the one to explain, but the look on her face…

Hermione turned and started for the door. "HERMIONE!" Ron called, surprised even though he had known she would do this the moment he had mentioned Harry's name. "Hermione, wait…."

"I'm done waiting," Hermione responded coldly, swiveling around to look at him. "I waited for three years for this moment, I am not waiting any longer. Any information you have, tell me now. I don't care, anymore. Just tell me, I want to know."

"He's not breathing," Ron whispered. He watched as a veil fell back behind Hermione's eyes. She seemed to be falling right back into seclusion from the world. But he had to say it. He knew she was right and she needed to know. Fuck it all she needed to know. "He's not moving, not breathing, his neck is broken, he's got blood dripping from his nose, his mouth…" he looked at Hermione, horrified at just reliving the current state of his nemesis. "His legs… they're both broken. They've got these… lines, black lines running from his pelvis to his toes and all the while, his skin has turned a sickening blue."

Hermione stood there for a moment longer, then turned and continued for the door. "He's not in there," Ron answered. "Harry's alone." Hermione ignored him and opened the door. "You don't have to do this." Ron called. This time, Hermione bowed her head, the need to release her tears almost painful. "You can bypass it all. You don't have to see him. You don't have to go through this again."

Hermione turned her head to look at him. "Yes," she whispered. "I do." And she left.

00000

Hermione's hand grasped the door and tugged, hard… nothing happened.

"I'm sorry, miss, but this room is off limits," came a voice to her left. Looking up, she noticed a man standing guard by the room.

"Oh, um," she began, looking up at him.

"Hermione!" came Ron's voice from down the hall. "Hermione, you… oh." He stopped, looking from her to the guard. "Um, yeah she's, well you know. She has special permission."  
The guard looked at him strangely. "Along with me," Ron continued. "So if you don't mind, we'd like to visit our friend."

Hermione looked at him, eternally grateful. The guard nodded his head, swept his wand across the doorknob and, with a pop, the door swung opened.

Harry lay on his back, draped across the bed before her. Quickly, hopefully, her eyes swept across the room as if searching for another man who could possibly be occupying the room.

There was no one.

"Harry," she whispered, walking toward him, her knees kneeling against the cold floor, her hand finding his in a reassuring embrace.

His eyes opened and locked with hers. "Hermione," he whispered.

Silence withheld within the room. Ron had chosen to stand by the door, simply watching the young couple converse… or not, as the case may be.

Finally, the one question that mattered to Hermione burst from her mouth before she could stop it. "Harry did… did you find him." Harry looked at her sorrowfully. "Harry please tell me you didn't dig him from his grave to bring him here."

Harry looked at her for a moment longer and then responded, "What's your definition of a grave?"

"Harry," she retorted, anger filling her voice. "How could you? I can't believe you would do that!" She stood up and prepared to leave the room when Harry called, "It's not like that, Hermione."

"Then what is it like?" she snapped, spinning to face him on her heel.

"I found him… alive."

Hermione stood there, bewildered. Her eyes simply stared at him, disbelievingly. How could he have found Draco? He'd died; she had been at his funeral. "When," she whispered.

Harry dropped his gaze. "A week ago."

Hermione couldn't believe this. "Why didn't you tell me?" she demanded, hurt.

"BECAUSE YOU WERE LAYING IN A BLOODY HOSPITAL BED!" Harry shouted. "I couldn't do that to you! Not when he was the reason you were there. I found him there, dying. I left him to die because I couldn't stand the reality of what would happen if I brought him back here." He looked at her, his heart throbbing on his sleeve painfully. "You would have chosen him. I would have simply been cast aside and you would have chosen him. I couldn't stand that thought… so I left him there."

He waited for a reaction, but after a moment of receiving none from both a hurt and confused Hermione and a bewildered Ron, he plunged on. "I came back here, furious with myself for what I had done. Ron told me you had been moved to St. Mungo's in my absence, and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that despite everything I'd done for you, you had still managed to hold him right next to your heart. He was so close to you, it was killing your very soul. I could see it, could feel it."

His tone changed to that of a man who had married someone and watched as they grieved for another. The man he had become over the years. His voice was monotonous as he spoke the next words. "I watched you as you cried yourself to sleep, every single night. I watched as you died, died right by my side and I could do nothing to save you. I tried so hard to move him away, to distance your love so far that you couldn't possibly continue to grieve over that lost love. But you did; the love never left you, it destroyed you. And now, you're here, sitting in a hospital room because of that love. And you still won't let it go.

"These thoughts encompassed my brain as I paced outside your door, trying to figure out a way out of what I knew I had to do. His last words echoed in my head; the words he had yelled at me just before I had left him to die. He had performed the Unbreakable vow, you see. The very vow that had almost destroyed him once before; and it was about to destroy him again:

"'I have a week,' he told me. He told me of the Unbreakable vow he had made. And then he said, 'I bet him I could escape in a month. I have less then a week left. If I don't get out in that time, I'm going to fall into a fairytale sleep. Fill in the blanks.'

"You called out for him moments later. As these words echoed in my head, I heard you call out his name. I ran. I ran straight through the door and right to your side, hoping against hope you hadn't said what I knew you had. And then you said it again. Tossing and turning, you muttered, 'Draco, no.' I knew you must be dreaming again, so I called for a nurse and left you. I left you to save him, for I knew that was the only option left. I could do nothing less. He remained the only one who could save you, after all this time."

Harry fell silent and watched as the information sunk into his friend and wife's brain.

"I'm… I'm so sorry, Harry," she murmured. "I…" she had nothing more to say. "Were you injured saving him, then?"

"Lucius, it turns out, had been torturing his own son. He found me just as I had prepared to walk away with him," Harry answered. "He's not dead, not even close."

Hermione shook her head, devastated. "So, so the sleep… the sleep you mentioned earlier; the… the fairy tale sleep. Is it referring to Sleeping Beauty?"

"I assume so," Harry responded.

"So he'll live again if we can find his true love and convince her to kiss him?" she asked, beating around the inevitable answer.

"Only if you want to," Ron answered from behind her. "You don't have to kiss him, but yes; that would be what happened if you chose to."

"Me?" Hermione answered. "Why… why me?"

Ron opened his mouth to respond, but Harry beat him to it. "Oh come on, Hermione. Put the pieces together. You and Draco have been soul mates for Merlin knows how long! I don't know how long you've been in love with the bastard, but its very clear to me that you are both deeply in love and you would have to be the one to save him!"

Hermione opened her mouth, aghast. She had known this, of course… she just didn't want to believe it. Saving Draco would be like automatically sealing their fate… Harry could no longer be part of the picture if she chose to save Draco. And while every molecule in her body seemed to scream at her, seemed to know unwaveringly which she should choose, the burden still hung like a heavy cloak around her shoulders, weighing her down as she stood there, trembling in confusion.

"I… I can't… I just, I have to go," she muttered, backing out of the room. Ron had barely a moment to comprehend and turn to face her before she had fled through the door and pounded down the corridor.

Locking Harry's gaze for confirmation, Ron took off after her. She continued to run, her feet hammering down the spiraling staircases, one right after the other, until she reached the lobby. Stopping to watch her, he completely expected her to go straight for the head witch and demand to know Draco's room number. What he did not expect was for her to continue for the exit, pull open the door, and disaperate from the building's premises.

Something was rotten in Denmark.

**A/N: At last! Okay we're finally getting somewhere with our favorite characters! They are, or were, all on the same floor and conversing! That is definitely an improvement, no? backs away from angry readers Okay fine… I'll uh, just get to posting the next chapter, shall I? Um… review? I'll post faster... okay, I know I have no room to bargain... but, uh...**

**runs away as fast as she can**

**PhoenixTearsCG**


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